Larry Summers has dismissed Joe Biden’s fiscal stimulus as the ‘least responsible’ economic policy for 40 years – but is he right?

The former US treasury secretary is a big beast in the American economic scene and we would be wise to listen to him, writes Hamish McRae

Summers during his time as director of Barack Obama's National Economic Council (Getty)

Larry Summers is famed for his intellectual arrogance, as he cheerfully acknowledges. But when he says that the Biden fiscal stimulus is the “least responsible” economic policy for 40 years, we should all sit up and listen.   

He was himself US treasury secretary in the final 18 months of the Bill Clinton administration and chairman of the National Economic Council at the White House for Barack Obama. He was president of Harvard University, a role in which he was portrayed by Douglas Urbanski in The Social Network, giving short shrift to the Winklevoss twins when they sought his help against Mark Zuckerberg, who they claimed had stolen their idea for what became Facebook. Summers’s wry recollection of the actual interchange can be seen on YouTube. 

So he is a big beast in the American economic scene and a big beast as an adviser to presidents.