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Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, now head of the banking industry's Financial Services Roundtable, said that revenues will have to be "part of the mix" in the discussions regarding the "fiscal cliff" in Washington.

Pawlenty saying that discussing revenue is appropriate is a new message from the former governor, who spent eight years opposing new state revenues of nearly any type.

But on CNN Wednesday he said to fly the fiscal plane over the cliff: "One wing is what Speaker Boehner has said, which is we are going to have to work on revenues and put that on the table, the details are to be defined about that, but at least they are working on that and there's some acknowledgement around that but the other wing of course is going to be structural, spending reform and containment and that's going to have to include entitlement reform and so far there is less progress or less coming together on that issue."

Asked specifically if he would adopt President Obama's plan to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire for the wealthy and extend them for the rest of taxpayers, Pawlenty demurred that the Financial Services Roundtable "hasn't taken a specific position on that."

But he reiterated that: "most of my members would say they recognize that some revenues need to be part of the mix but they haven't taken a position on what specifically would (generate them.)"