As one season transitions into another, more than one summer is coming to an end. Larry Summers, Obama's director of the National Economic Council and chief economic policy coordinator, is leaving this administration in order to return to Harvard.
Mr. Summers makes the third high ranking member of the Obama economic team to exit the White House: Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Peter Orszag, the budget director. Mr. Timothy Geithner, the treasury secretary, is the last man standing among this august group.
None of the three have left under suspicious circumstances. There are no known controversies. The last two have left to return to their institutions of higher learning. Nothing wrong with that. Except...
One can hardly claim that their work is done. Americans still face an economy in shambles. As I have noted in prior posts, housing and employment are perilously close to the same precipice that they hurtled off of a couple of years ago. There is only one exception to our current situation being the same as 2007-2008: we are in worse shape now.
America now has more debt, more government regulations, less business expansion, and far fewer tools to combat another recession/depression. In the midst of all this, the chief geniuses and architects of the Obama economic policy decide to bail?
I think that they know that they have failed. Successful men and women - men and women who are convinced that their hard work and sacrifice are going to pay off - don't bail out of challenging situations. Sure, they might leave after the tough days of accomplishing their goals are finished. They might need a well-deserved break after sacrificing themselves so much to succeed. But winners don't quit in the middle of the project - unless, they know they're defeated.
Obama's dream team brought their Keynesian, socialist, central planning theories to the table, forced them down our throats, and discovered that they do not work. They don't have anything left. Why stay on this sinking ship, when they can trot back to their ivory towers and dupe young minds with the evils of capitalism and free enterprise?
Summers is over. Are you ready for the coming winter?
