As he prepares to leave, Summers defends Obama administration’s economic policies

Top White House economic advisor Lawrence Summers defended the Obama administration’s economic policies in his final speech before stepping down at year’s end.

Meantime, the White House, which had hoped to have a successor ready to take over, said a replacement for the key position probably wouldn’t be named until the new year.

“Had it not been for President Obama’s willingness to support a sufficiently aggressive response from the late stage of the presidential campaign to his first days and months in office, I have little doubt that we would be looking at a vastly different world today,” Summers told those attending an Economic Policy Institute meeting Monday in Washington.

“Yet while the economy may be out of the intensive care unit, the patient now faces the long road of not just recovering from previous affliction but beginning to address chronic ailments,” he said.

As chairman of the White House National Economic Council, the former Treasury secretary and Harvard University president was a key player in the decisions to enact the $814-billion economic stimulus legislation and continue the financial bailouts started by the Bush administration.

Summers, who has been a key advisor to the president, said in September that he would step down to return to Harvard University, and the administration said it wanted to name a successor by the time Summers left.

But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that work on the tax-cut deal, the press for Senate approval of a new nuclear treaty with Russia and other issues were taking up a lot of time for administration officials.

“I’m not sure that’s going to get done by the end of the year,” he said about replacing Summers.

Summers was asked if he regretted returning to Washington to work for Obama, given the continued economic problems. He said he had no regrets working for a “remarkable president” during “an enormously consequential time for our economy.”

“Would I like the results to be even better than they have been on a number of different dimensions? Of course,” Summers said. “But I think the president is right to take pride in what has been averted. And that is not easy always for people to understand, but is something that I think is very, very important.”

Summers made a pitch for approval of the tax-cut deal between Obama and congressional Republican leaders as he warned of low economic demand for “several years to come.”

He also said it was important for the nation to deal longer term with the growing federal budget deficit, though he stressed that he did not see “financial collapse on the imminent horizon.”’

“Deficits are a means of postponing and magnifying ultimately necessary tax increases or spending reductions,” Summers said. “They are a tax on our future unless used to finance productive investments.”

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com