Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to make America great again might end up failing because it leaves out some of the most-needed changes to infrastructure
Summers, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, said the plan forgoes critical repairs to roads and schools and focuses instead on more self-serving measures, CNBC.com explained.
Trump's plan "rules out the most important infrastructure investments - fixing the potholes, repairing the schools, because the only infrastructure investments it can fund are the ones that are very commercial and yield revenues," Summers told CNBC.
"The laws of economics are the same no matter who is president. Infrastructure can still help the economy and can stimulate the economy, but his infrastructure looks not to be the right one," Summers said. "Infrastructure is the small part the Trump program," he said.
Some aspects of Trump's blueprint are "ill-designed," said Summers, now a Harvard professor.
Summers said Trump's call for massive tax cuts was "very, very poorly targeted." He said the estate tax repeal will actually encourage saving and discourage spending, CNBC explained.
And Trump's protectionism rhetoric "has already done a ton of damage to U.S. industry because of the effect on exchange rates," he said.
"If you add it all up, it doesn't seem like a very favorable equation except for a limited number of companies that are going to benefit from the deregulatory measures," said Summers, who served in two Democratic administrations.
But other respected economic gurus fully stand behind Trump and his vision.
Steve Forbes believes the president-elect will reverse Obama's "anti-growth executive orders" and make a push for deregulation the minute he officially gains the Oval Office.
"One of the things I think the president will do even on Inauguration Day itself is sign executive orders peeling away a lot of Obama's anti-growth executive orders and having a real push for deregulation," Forbes said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" morning show.
"Remember when Ronald Reagan came in back in 1981, on Day 1 he took off price controls on oil and gas which critics said would lead to a huge increase in prices," Forbes said. "It led to just the opposite. More supply, more reasonable prices and it contributed to the great boom of the 1980s. I think you will see Trump try to do the same thing from Day 1 on the deregulatory side of things."
For its part, the American public has seemingly given Trump a rousing ovation.
Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index soared 13 points last week to turn positive for the first time since March 2015 in the wake of Donald Trump’s White House victory.
Gallup's Economic Confidence Index moved from a slightly negative evaluation (-10) to a slightly positive one (+3). The index had been consistently negative throughout the year leading up to the election.
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).
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