Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said financial markets have “confidence” in U.S. government finances as politicians seek to narrow the budget deficit, Bloomberg reported.

There is “a lot of confidence in markets that the American political system will be able to get our fiscal path in a sustainable position,” Geithner said today.

“If you look at what we pay to borrow, the world basically believes that our problems are more manageable, our system will solve it,” he said. “But we want to make sure that we’re earning that confidence every day.”

Bond yields in the United States are lower now than when the government was running a budget surplus a decade ago, even though Treasury Department data shows that the amount of marketable debt outstanding has risen to $9.13 trillion from $4.34 trillion in mid-2007.

President Barack Obama yesterday proposed cutting $4 trillion in cumulative deficits within 12 years through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. In the next five years, the administration forecasts the government will amass deficits totaling $3.8 trillion, and in a decade the cumulative deficits would rise to $7.2 trillion.