Larry Summers' debate with Bernie Sanders over the Fed, explained

The former treasury secretary and the socialist senator agree more often than you'd think

Summers vs. Sanders.
(Image credit: Illustration by Lauren Hansen | Images courtesy Getty Images, iStock)

Stop the presses! Bernie Sanders and Lawrence Summers seem to basically agree on the need to reform the Federal Reserve.

Sanders, as you may know, is the self-identified democratic socialist running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Summers was a treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and a major economic advisor to President Obama — but lots of lefty Democrats don't like him (to put it very mildly) because of his role in Clinton's centrist economic policies and financial deregulation. So the fact that both Sanders and Summers wrote op-eds recently sounding similar notes on what to do about one of the country's most rarified and mysterious economic policymaking institutions is something to sit up and take note of.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.