HKS Affiliated Authors
Frank and Denie Weil Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government
Charles W. Eliot University Professor
Excerpt
Excerpt
The Economy is on a Sugar High, and Tax Cuts Won’t Help. Lawrence Summers, December 10, 2017, Opinion, "Lawrence H. Summers is a professor at and past president of Harvard University. He was treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 and an economic adviser to President Barack Obama from 2009 through 2010. The approaching end of President Trump’s first year in office, another strong employment report and a still-strong stock market make it appropriate to revisit my year-old judgment that the economy is enjoying a “sugar high.” Unfortunately, the best available evidence suggests that signs of current market and economic strength are largely unrelated to government policy, that the drivers of this year’s economic strength are likely transient and that the structural foundation of the U.S. economy is weakening. Sugar high remains the right diagnosis, and tax cuts are very much the wrong prescription." Link