The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged larry summers

Summers Protesters Barking Up the Wrong Tree

By | 04.09.09 | 5:23 pm

Code Pink activists went after Obama economic adviser Larry Summers this afternoon, bounding to the conference room stage where Summers was speaking and unfurling a banner behind his back that read “We Want Our $$$ Back.”

But the most fascinating thing about the episode — aside from the fact that More…

Summers: No Economist Can Predict the Economy’s Future

By | 04.09.09 | 4:45 pm

Speaking before a gathering of business leaders Thursday, Larry Summers, who heads the White House Economic Council, delivered what might have been the most honest assessment yet of the nation’s economic recovery.

Asked when the economy will rebound, Summers said there are only two types of experts out there wrestling More…

Summers Defends Role in Bank Deregulation

By | 04.09.09 | 4:37 pm

President Obama’s top economic adviser on Thursday defended his role as a leading force behind the sweeping deregulation of the finance industry a decade ago, which many experts consider to be a cause of the current economic crisis.

Appearing before hundreds of business officials in Washington, Larry Summers said the More…

Cassandra in North Dakota

By | 04.06.09 | 1:23 pm

In November of 1999, when the Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve legislation deregulating the finance industry, The New York Times described part of the debate like this:

The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of

More…

Report: Gregg Voted to Abolish Agency He’s Set to Lead

By | 02.03.09 | 10:53 am

It seems that Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), President Barack Obama’s pick to head the Commerce Department, doesn’t exactly believe in the necessity of that agency.

CQ’s Jonathan Allen points out that Gregg, one of the upper chamber’s most vocal fiscal hawks, voted twice in 1995 to abolish the department More…

Report Gives America’s Infrastructure a ‘D’

By | 01.28.09 | 1:33 pm

It’s no news that many liberal critics of the Democrats’ stimulus plan are wondering why so much would go toward tax rebates and so little, relatively speaking, would target infrastructure projects. And those voices found new reason to be critical today.

A report released by the American Society of More…

Congress Dems Prepare to Defer to Obama

By | 01.14.09 | 6:00 am

A trusting Congress might be setting itself up to be burned again.

Last week, even as he introduced legislation to bolster Washington oversight of the Wall Street bailout, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) all but proclaimed his own proposal unnecessary.

“It doesn’t have to be enacted,” Frank, who chairs the House More…