Geithner and Gibbs Brief Reporters on Financial Regulatory Reform, National Debt Levels

President Barack Obama meets with Congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House to discuss Wall Street reform. From left, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the President, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. April 14, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Following President Obama's bipartisan meeting on financial regulatory reform, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs briefed reporters on the details.

Gibbs told the press corps Wednesday that the president is willing to listen to republican ideas but ultimately he's "not going to make bad policy decisions."

The press secretary predicted that there would be "deliberate efforts" by the GOP to water down legislation that would establish stricter rules for financial institutions.

Gibbs added that the president doesn't see this as "a race to the bottom" saying that the legislation will "end the concept of 'too big to fail.'"

Meanwhile, Secretary Geithner told Major Garrett that he hadn't seen Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, in which he told lawmakers that the economy is on an unsustainable path and warned that the federal debt could balloon to more than 100 percent of GDP.

"Of course that would be unsustainable but that's not going to happen if Congress adopts the policies the president laid out," Geithner told reporters in the daily White House briefing.  He added that the president's policies "would bring our deficit down dramatically over the next few years and get them much closer to the point where we're living within our means again as a country.  But of course everybody recognizes right now that we're living with unsustainable deficits."