Larry Summers was officially tapped yesterday as a top White House advisor and the next head of the White House's National Economics Counsel. Summers' part in Obama's economic "dream team" is no surprise, as he's been a mainstay on the national economic scene for nearly two decades. Even in the late ‘80s Summers was trying to figure out the best way to achieve American prosperity, even a few times in the pages of TNR.
In November of '87, Summers argued for "a few good taxes" to reduce the national deficit, including tax increases on alcohol, tobacco, and gasoline.
A few months later, he asked the American government to counter-intuitively sit back and allow the decline of the U.S. dollar.
And in June of '89, Summers laid out the reasons why the new Bush administration needed to "take the long view" in terms of economic policy by reforming corporate culture and increasing national saving.
--Amanda Silverman