Geithner: US Must Deal with Budget Woes or Pay More

WASHINGTON - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday the country's debt situation was so severe that Congress must deal with it or face the risk the country will be charged much higher interest rates to borrow.

"There is no way of knowing how long financial markets will give the American political system to get ahead of this problem," Geithner said in prepared remarks for delivery to the Harvard Club in New York. "When confidence turns, it can turn with brutal force and with a momentum that is very difficult and costly to arrest."