GeneSperling

The President does in fact have a proposal to reduce agriculture subsidies in his FY2013 budget, and he proposed it again in his offer to Speaker Boehner. It would save $30 billion as part of his overall, balanced plan to reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion.

Budget: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/budget.pdf

President's offer to Speaker Boehner: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/21/balanced-plan-avert-sequester-and-reduce-deficit-balanced-way

One of the main reasons the President put so much of his personal effort into passing Wall Street Reform was to end too big to fail. That’s why the bill he signed into law in 2010 – often referred to as "Dodd-Frank" – creates new tools to unwind large financial firms without destabilizing our entire economy. The law explicitly prohibits bail outs, and provides mechanisms to remove management and directors of failing firms that need to be resolved, wipe out shareholders, and protect taxpayers and our economy. Beyond that, Wall Street reform forces big financial institutions to hold more capital so when they make a mistake they pay for it – not taxpayers. And through what’s known as the "Volcker Rule" we will prohibit firms from making risky trades with insured consumer deposits. We think these reforms substantially change incentives. We’ve also proposed a financial crisis responsibility fee that would be imposed on the banks based on their size and risk, to help encourage a more stable financial system.

In terms of punishing wrongdoing, I think we have a strong record. The president directed his DOJ to create a financial fraud enforcement tax force. Over the last few years, the justice department has filed 10,000 financial fraud causes against nearly 15,000 defendants – including more than 2,900 mortgage fraud defendants. These cases have resulted in guilty pleas and jail time. And we got the largest housing settlement in history, forcing five of the largest banks to pay billions in relief for families across America.

On "The West Wing" -- I always have answered that it is pretty realistic, except that we are not as funny, don't walk as fast and most of us are not as good looking. The West Wing show aimed for reality, except that they often have to condense a 9 month process to 60 minutes. When President Obama asked me how life in the first six months of his administration during the financial crisis compared to normal times -- I gave the same reply: that we were being forced to do 9 months of policy work in what seemed like 60 minutes.

What I liked most about The West Wing -- and what was most realistic to me -- was that instead of portraying people in Washington as either cynical or naive, our boss, Aaron Sorkin did a great job at portraying serious and deeply committed and well-intentioned people trying to do good things in what is a very difficult, complex and political environment. That is how I think most of us -- on both sides of the aisle -- see our efforts. The West Wing captured that and I think it has inspired many young people to go into public service.

Finally, for me the best thing about 4 years of consulting and part-time writing for the West Wing is that it is how I met my wife Allison Abner. She was a writer on the show, and I met her the first day in my interview.

Ok.. that was a fun one, now back to the real West Wing issues.....

These are not either or questions for us. A sound economic plan has to do three things at once: give more momentum to our recovery in the short-term, achieve long-term fiscal discipline in a balanced way and ensure that we still make room for the investments in our future -- children, education, infrastructure and research. It is having a strategy that pursues all three of those goals that hits the fiscal sweet spot. A smart plan, therefore can in the same overall package accelerate critical job creating investments like attacking deferred maintenance in our infrastructure and schools, while also putting in place tax and sensible entitlement reform that both contribute to deficit reduction while ensuring we are not crowding out critical investments in our competitiveness.

We chose the amount of long-term deficit reduction to ensure that our debt and deficits were falling as a percentage of our economy -- an important metric for ensuring confidence in whether the United States is still the best place to make long-term investments. We have already achieved $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction and believe achieving $1.5 trillion-$1.8 trillion more in a balanced way is the best way to hit that target. But I want to stress, the ultimate goal for economic policy is not hitting a specific metric, but whether the culmination of your policies lead to a stronger, more secure, and more inclusive middle class where everyone can rise, and where even children born into the poorest circumstances have a chance to reach their potential and where dignified work and retirement is promoted. That is why it makes sense and is consistent to have an economic plan that at the same time seeks to achieve enough deficits to see our debt falling as a percentage of our economy, while still finding additional savings to do something as smart and consistent with our values as promoting quality pre-school for every child, when we know that furthers our values and our future workforce.

Thanks for the note. Our calculation is that only about 20% of those who would benefit from the minimum wage increase are teens.

The President also strongly supports the EITC - and signed two increases to the EITC (a reduction of the marriage penalty and help for larger families) in 2009, and just recently fought to get them extended till 2018 in the fiscal cliff agreement.

Increasing the minimum wage and the EITC are complementary and not either or choices.