Summers Talks Economy, Election at Hillel

Former University President Lawrence H. Summers was the focus of a luncheon event at Harvard Hillel yesterday, giving attendees a chance to question the former U.S. Treasury Secretary about hot-button economic issues in advance of today’s national elections.

Summers, who currently serves as an advisor to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, made no secret of his allegiances when asked to offer his opinions on the platforms of the two major party candidates.

“I can only answer that question with no pretense of objectivity,” Summers said at one point, drawing laughter from the nearly 30 people in attendance at the event. “The difference in economic approaches by either candidate is that one is sophisticated and the other is not.”

Summers identified Obama’s proposed tax cuts for the middle class and his emphasis on a cooperative foreign policy as key progressive elements of the presiddential hopeful’s platform.

“Economic outcomes have been better under more progressive leadership,” he said, crediting the policies of former president Bill Clinton with spurring one of the most “prosperous times in American history.” (Summers spent his term as Treasury Secretary under Clinton.)

The former University President currently serves as the Chairman of Hillel’s Council of Overseers, and has long been one of the organizations key supporters, according to Paula J. Dahari, Hillel’s director of development.

“The students loved him and he loved them,” Dahari said. “When he was here he felt like he was part of the Hillel family, as opposed to the president of the most esteemed university in the world.”

The floor at yesterday’s event was meant to be opened to all questions in what Hillel Director Bernard Steinberg termed “a completely open forum.” But students wasted no time narrowing the subject of their inquiries to the impending presidential election and the recent economic crisis, with one Hillel undergraduate questioning Summers on what the effects of an economic recession would be on the American workforce.

According to Konstantin Pozin ’10, Hillel’s director for communication, Summers’ words were particularly useful in offering an optimistic position on the government’s plan to bailout the faltering economy—a view he said he had not seen elsewhere.

Summers compared the expensive bailout plan to the purchase of a painting that can be sold later to recoup some of the price, as opposed to a vacation whose cost is lost once the fun is over.

“The government is expecting to get a lot of that money back, and that’s not something that’s come up very often in discussions in regular media outlets,” Pozin said.