Lawrence H. Summers

Opinion | Lawrence Summers: This Law Made Me Ashamed of My Country

This round of budget cuts in Medicaid in the OBBB far exceeds any other cut the United States has made in its social safety net. Read my New York Times opinion piece:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/o...

This current administration risks putting this cycle in reverse by undermining the Federal Reserve, imposing tariffs and passing a tax and policy bill that is more budget busting than big and beautiful.

That set off a virtuous economic cycle of growth, deficit reduction, lower interest rates and thus more investment and growth. Fiscal responsibility helped contain inflation b/ it was accompanied by respect for the independence of the Fed and recognition of the importance of a strong dollar.

In that earlier era, we followed a strategy of hoping for the best, while planning conservatively. We paired policies that reduced the deficit with others that stimulated investment.

There are important parallels between the two moments. Mr. Clinton then and Mr. Trump now face serious fiscal problems and an economy that is being rapidly changed by new technology; then it was the internet, now it’s artificial intelligence.

We were members of Bill Clinton’s economic team when the federal budget was balanced, the only time that has happened in more than half a century. In nearly every respect, the Trump administration’s approach is the opposite of what worked in the 1990s — and it poses huge risks to our economy.

Opinion | We Both Served as Treasury Secretary. We Know This Bill Is Dangerous.

This bill is more budget busting than big and beautiful. We helped balance the budget but Trump’s plan unbalances our finances and our country.

Read my @nytopinion.nytimes.com piece with Bob Rubin.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/o...

Summers on the Fed, Middle East and NYC Mayoral Primary Fed Chair Powell says uncertainty around tariffs justifies holding interest rates steady for now. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers agrees but warns that rising inflation and unemployment ...

Watch Friday’s Wall Street Week BloombergTV where I talk with David Westin about how inflation and unemployment are making the Fed’s job harder. We also discuss the economic fallout from conflict with Iran and the New York City mayoral race.
www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/...

Opinion | ‘Are We Past Peak Harvard?’: 3 Writers Mull Higher Education’s Woes

‘Are We Past Peak Harvard?’ Frank Bruni, Ross Douthat and I discuss the state of higher education in Trump 2.0 and beyond in a New York Times online conversation.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/o...

Takeaways:
Losing the Privilege – The U.S. has long benefitted from the dollar’s dominance. That status was never guaranteed.

Policy Risk Is the New Market Risk – When investors worry more about Washington than war or pandemics, something’s broken.

Takeaways from my conversation w/ Jay Sapsford:

Triple Market Warning – Stocks, bonds, and the dollar are falling together. That should be a source of 'apprehension.'

Tariffs Send Mixed Signals – Economic nationalism may play well at home, but globally it raises doubts about U.S. reliability.

YouTube video by U.S. Chamber of Commerce Is the Dollar Still a Safe Haven? With Larry Summers

Is the Dollar Still a Safe Haven? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce podcast on how tariffs stoke uncertainty and investor anxiety, putting our financial credibility at risk. “It’s as much a question of psychology as it is of economics.”

youtu.be/bsyI307Xmo8?... via
@YouTube

YouTube video by Lawrence Summers 1 on 1 with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, This Week with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos

"This is the biggest self-inflicted wound we've put on our economy in history. ...Until we have a reversal, I think we're going to have a real problem." Watch my interview today on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

youtu.be/1NwDy__RJKE?...

Looking forward to being on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News tomorrow morning at 9am ET.

Opinion | Lawrence Summers: Harvard Must Not Yield to Trump As with most confrontations, the merits in this clash are not one-sided. But the Trump administration is acting in bad faith.

Institutions such as Harvard have vast financial resources, great prestige & broad networks of influential alumni. If they do not or cannot resist the arbitrary application of government power, who else can? Without acts of resistance, what protects the rule of law?

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/o...

Trump’s attack is not surprising given his authoritarian tendency and past rhetoric. Columbia's capitulation was unconstructive at best, and I pray Harvard will avoid following their example.

Second, President Trump is no moral beacon on antisemitism. He has praised and dined with Neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers and welcomed the support of ugly white nationalists.

First, that it would be illegal and likely unconstitutional, as well as threatening prosperity and national security, to suddenly withdrawal federal resources from American universities.

While the Trump Administration is right in saying universities have been wrongly accepting of antisemitism, it should not obscure two central realities.

Europe’s Stock Surge Outpaces Wall Street in Historic Run This was a historic quarter for European stocks. Investors are now wondering if there will be an encore.

Trump's idea was to make America great again. Instead, the result in the quarter of President Trump taking office was the worst relative stock performance vs. Europe in the decades since they began collecting data.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

....if it is to regain public confidence and be in a maximally strong position to confront dictatorial oppression of the kind currently being applied to Columbia, other universities, several prominent law firms and holders of valid work visas.

To be sure, Harvard has much more to do on discipline, limiting DEI, constraining soft censorship of conservative ideas, and promoting ideological diversity .....

I hope and trust these actions reflect the belated development of conviction and courage by leadership, rather than an effort to appease the threatening, dangerous, oppressive Trump administration.

The university at last did the right thing by suspending its partnership with terrorist supporting Birzeit University and by moving to replacing the leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Even after egregious delay since it was pointed up right after October 7, I am very glad that Harvard is curbing its institutional support for anti semitism.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

There is strength in numbers, and I hope across American universities and American institutions more broadly there will be organization for collective resistance to extortionate government demands.

Makes no mistake, our prosperity as well as our freedom depends on the maintenance of law.

I cannot judge, because I do not have many of the relevant facts, the wisdom or necessity of the steps taken.

But this kind of bending of the knee by major institutions, if continued, threatens American democracy.

I am profoundly saddened and alarmed by Columbia University and Paul Weiss law firm’s capitulation to the increasingly dictatorial Trump administration.

Today. 9:35am ET. Talking with John Berman on CNN about tariffs and upcoming Fed meetings.

After the events of Friday in the Oval Office, I wonder if Treasury Secretary Bessent stands by his view that President Trump should receive a Nobel Prize for his efforts with respect to Russia & Ukraine. It might be the most absurd, offensive and sycophantic comment ever made by a Treasury Sec.