Obama Treasury Secretary: US at ‘Risk of Recession’ in the Next Year

Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard Professor Larry Summers makes remarks during a discussion on low-income developing countries at the annual IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington on April 13, 2016. Mike Theiler/AFP via Getty Images

Former Obama administration Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted the United States will enter an economic recession and suggested the possibility of yet higher gas prices than the country is currently seeing.

“I think the optimists were wrong a year ago in saying we have no inflation and I think they are wrong now if anyone is highly confident that we are going to avoid recession,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union“ on Sunday, adding that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s predictions are ”too optimistic.”