Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said that former President Donald Trump, in many ways, set the stage for the inflation that the U.S. is witnessing and criticized Republicans over their "irresponsible" stance over the debt limit.
“Going back to those policies that talk populist, while practicing the art of the deal for what America has that is close to oligarchs, those would be steps very much in the wrong direction," he said in an interaction with CNN.
Summers said President Joe Biden should use the government's purchasing power to make things cheaper as is being done with pharmaceuticals, according to the interaction.
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Mid-term Elections: Regarding the mid-term elections, Summer said some Republican leaders threatening to send the nation into default by not passing the debt limit is concerning.
“What I have heard from a number of Republicans, including Republican House Leader McCarthy, about threatening to not pass the debt limit and send the country into default is chilling. To do that with the objective of cutting social security benefits compounds the pain. That is [an] irresponsible and unpatriotic policy that threatens both Americans' strength and threatens the people, a lot of who are getting more than $40,000 from social security," Summers told CNN.
Market Moves: Major Wall Street indices closed higher on Tuesday ahead of the results of the mid-term elections as investors and traders anticipate the Republicans to win control of the House of Representatives and potentially, the Senate. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY ended Tuesday’s session 0.54% higher, while the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund ETF BND gained 0.45%.
Fed Independence: The former Treasury Secretary also vouched for the independence of the central bank and for bringing down the deficit.
"We need to do more to support the independence of the Federal Reserve. Over time, we are going to need to bring down the budget deficit, we need to increase the flexibility of the economy," Summers said.
Photo: World Economic Forum via Wikimedia Commons
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