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Is Larry Summers ‘America's true villain’? Former US Treasury Secretary slammed over Joe Biden's Covid-19 plan

Former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers recently wrote an op-ed to extensively talk about President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan

Former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, an adviser to Joe Biden while he was running for the presidency, had previously called President Biden’s $2,000 stimulus checks for Americans to be a “pretty serious mistake”. Summers has recently written an op-ed for The Washington Post, which did not sit too well with many. After Summers’ op-ed released, several have slammed Summers and even labeled him “America’s true villain”.

In his op-ed to The Washington Post, Summers, 66, starts by calling Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan the “boldest act of macroeconomic stabilization policy in U.S. history” and says there are some 'big risks' involved. Summers then talked about the incremental deficits related to GDP gaps where he said that the wage and salary incomes are now running about $30 billion a month below pre-Covid-19 forecasts, and this gap will likely decline during 2021.

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Summers added that the Covid-19 relief plan could be a landmark achievement that helps the American economy, but it will be essential to consider how the administration will achieve everything. Summers concluded, “The Biden plan is a vital step forward, but we must make sure that it is enacted in a way that neither threatens future inflation and financial stability nor our ability to build back better through public investment.”

Summers writes: “A family of four with a pretax income of $1,000 a week would take home about $22,000 over the next six months. Under the Biden proposal, if the breadwinner were laid off, the family’s income over the next six months would likely exceed $30,000 as a result of regular unemployment insurance, the $400-a-week special unemployment insurance benefit and tax credits.”

Who is Lawrence Summers?

Summers was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1954, into a Jewish family. At the age of 16, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he started studying physics but later changed it to economics. While at MIT, he remained an active member of the debating team and even qualified for participation in the annual National Debate Tournament a total of three times. Summers got his PhD in 1982 from Harvard University and became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard’s history.

Summers started to work as an Undersecretary for International Affairs under Clinton Administration. He was later promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Robert Rubin, only to succeed him in 1999. Later in 2006, he was hired as a part-time managing director of the New York-based hedge fund, D.E. Shaw & Co., for which he reportedly received a $5 million in salary and other compensation over a 16-month period. Upon the inauguration of Barack Obama as president in 2009, Summers was appointed to the post of director of the National Economic Council.

‘America's true villain’

After Summers’ op-ed was released, many on Twitter started slamming him. One user wrote: "Larry Summers is one of America's true villains of the past 30 years and one of the ways I know there's not an ounce of justice in this universe is that he keeps hanging around the halls of power despite all he's done." Another wrote: "It's not unusual for Larry Summers or Wall Street people to talk about how their view is more progressive and helps the poor. That is their entire political strategy and has been since the 1970s. They aren't cartoonish villains, they represent a real anti-democratic philosophy."

A third chimed in, "We gotta bring back ostracism. Larry Summers has been wrong about everything and yet his beltway death cult keeps trying to bring him back like some anime villain." 

Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion Stimulus Plan

In January 2021, Biden unveiled his plan for Covid-19 relief and economic recovery. His $1.9 trillion stimulus deal, called ‘American Rescue Plan’, is divided into three significant brackets — $400 billion for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic that will include extensive testing and making vaccines available for everyone; $1 trillion in direct relief to families; and $400 billion in aid to communities and businesses.

Biden’s stimulus plan includes money for vaccines, testing, public health workers, emergency paid leaves, rental assistance, and funding for reopening schools, among other items. Biden’s plan would send out a total of $2,000 in stimulus checks to the extended federal unemployment insurance.

“We need to tackle the public health and economic crises we’re facing head-on,” Biden said in a tweet. “That’s why today, I’m announcing my American Rescue Plan. Together, we’ll change the course of the pandemic, build a bridge toward economic recovery, and invest in racial justice.”

Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan is a big deal as it doubles the $800 billion ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’ that Democrats passed in 2009 after the Great Recession hit the nation.

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.