White House Economic Counsel Director Larry Summers fired back at House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-OH) remark about “little punk staffers,” saying that “we in the administration do not believe that the prominent issue is allowing bankers to stand up for themselves.”
Earlier this week, Boehner told a crowd of bankers that they shouldn’t let “those little punk staffers take advantage of you, and stand up for yourselves.”
Yesterday morning, Summers told reporters:
I do not think of the people who work on this project as “little punk staffers.” I do not think that those who want to address these issues are “little punk staffers” who need to be stood up to. And at a time when industry has hired — has spent $1 million on lobbyists per member of Congress, at a moment when there are four lobbyists per member of the House and Senate working on this issue, we in the administration do not believe that the prominent issue is allowing bankers to stand up for themselves.
Summers’s criticism came alongside Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) letter to Boehner, in which Frank said he is “appalled” at the House Minority Leader’s comments.
