Why Is Larry Summers So Worried About Covid Relief?
Spending on stimulus now need not crowd out spending on infrastructure later.
It’s OK to worry about risks, but not too much.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergLarry Summers is concerned that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package is too big. What makes his point especially noteworthy — besides the fact that he is Larry Summers — is that he also readily admits that former President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus, of which he was one of the main architects, was too small.
This time he says, is different. He has crunched the numbers and concluded that the 2021 economy needs far less help than the 2009 economy did — yet Biden’s plan would provide about triple the boost of Obama’s. That’s overkill by any reasonable assessment, and Summers says it raises serious risks.