WASHINGTON (MktNews) - Former Federal Reserve Governor Lyle Gramley Wednesday afternoon said the recent decline in U.S. stock prices is increasing the chances that the Fed will cut rates by 75 basis points next Tuesday. In an interview on CNBC television, Gramley answered in the affirmative a question on whether the Fed will move 75 basis points lower at next week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting. "The chances are growing that they will, yes," he said. "They (Fed) have to be worried about this decline in stock prices. Greenspan has told us repeatedly that the stock market boom was what was causing the economy's very strong growth and it works in reverse just as well as it does on the upside," Gramley added. Still the most recent economic data don't yet indicate a contraction, Gramley said. "While the non-financial numbers coming in so far this year have been reasonably reassuring -- we're not in a recession yet -- the risks of recession are growing. "If the Fed wants to get ahead of the game it probably ought to go 75 basis points," he said. Asked whether the Fed should be targeting the stock market, Gramley said no, but noted, "When you're already in a relatively weak economy, hardly growing at all and you're looking at the stock market falling like this you have to project further weakness ahead and quite possibly a recession unless the stock market gets turned around." And he again warned of the growing risks of a recession: "You have to figure that the personal saving rate is going to start getting driven up now, just as it was driven down by the rising stock market wealth and if we a very significant rise in the saving rate, it will be almost impossible to avoid a recession."