Larry Summers isn’t a fan of President Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
The former treasury secretary, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, told ABC News’ This Week that he has “never been as embarrassed for my country on July 4th” after Trump signed the sweeping legislation into law on Friday.
“This is a shameful act by our Congress and by our president that is going to set our country back,” he told host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.
Trump’s bill is a monster piece of legislation that, among other things, extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, imposes work requirements for Medicaid recipients, and increases defense and border security spending.
Summers said there was “no economist anywhere without a strong political agenda who is saying that this bill is a positive for the economy.“
“The overwhelming view is that it is probably going to make the economy worse,” he added.
The bill is forecast to add $3.4 trillion to the U.S. national debt, which already stands at $36.2 trillion.
“Think about it this way,” Summer said. “How long can the world’s greatest debtor remain the world’s greatest power? And this is piling more debt onto the economy than any piece of tax legislation in dollar terms that we have ever had.”
Summers also bemoaned the social cost of the bill, saying that it amounted to “the biggest cut in the American safety net in history.” The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 12 million Americans will lose health insurance because of changes to Medicaid, which will now require recipients to prove they are working.
He said the cuts will lead to 100,000 deaths over the next 10 years, citing forecasting by the Yale Budget Lab.
“That is 2,000 days of death like we’ve seen in Texas this weekend,” Summers said, referencing flash floods in the south of the state that have killed at least 70 people.
Summers, along with fellow former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, also appointed by Clinton, warned that the bill was “dangerous” in an op-ed in The New York Times last week.
“An unsustainable fiscal trajectory has real consequences: It means higher interest rates and capital costs, reduced business confidence and crowding out of private investment,” Summers and Rubin wrote. “It risks financial turmoil as immense Treasury debts prove difficult for the market to absorb, and in a volatile and uncertain world it reduces flexibility to respond to economic or geopolitical threats. And alongside attacks on Federal Reserve independence and tariffs, it raises inflation risks.”
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