(CNSNews.com) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted to the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday that the deficits the federal government will run in the foreseeable future are “alarmingly high,” but said the administration would still like to make some provisions of the stimulus bill permanent.

“There are limits to what the government can do now. Our deficits, as everybody says, are alarmingly high. They’re too high -- they have to come down in time -- and we do not have the resources available that we can go borrow from the rest of the world and put it into even well-designed programs,” Geithner told committee members.

The top Treasury official said there is a “strong economic argument” for extending some of the provisions in the $787 billion stimulus spending bill, even as Democrats in Congress have reportedly agreed not to call new spending on job creation a “stimulus.”

“What the president’s proposed in the budget,” Geithner said, “is to set aside $100 billion on top of some of the extension of measures in the Recovery Act already approved like the extension of unemployment insurance, and I believe the country can afford that, if we design that use of that package sensibly. That will be a good thing not just for growth but for a long-term fiscal position.”

But the top Republican on the committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), balked at the idea of more stimulus spending...