Safe to say Larry Summers is happier with the current state of economic recovery than he is with the whole debt ceiling debate.
On Monday, Summers, former chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, took to the airwaves in an attempt to make sense of last month's disappointing jobs numbers, also taking a couple jabs at those current using the debt ceiling issue as political leverage.
While a series of unfortunate events, including the Japan earthquake, rising energy prices and instability in the Middle East, might have shaken business confidence in recent months, Summers says that current U.S. economic policies remain the right ones, pointing to recent monetary and fiscal initiatives of the government as a "basis for sustained growth."
What's not in the cards is a quick recovery similar to the one that occurred in the 1980s, Summers says. "The kind of 6 or 7 percent growth that you saw at the aftermath of the 1982 recession, it doesn't happen in the aftermath of this kind of recession," he said.
Summers went on to echo comments made by former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan last Friday on the unlikelihood of Congress failing to raise the debt limit. "I can't conceive that whatever their other failing, the political figures in Washington would allow the country to default," Summers said.
Not raising the debt limit, Summers says, would have "catastrophic" consequences. "I find it very surprising that people in positions of authority are prepared to use the credit worthiness of the country as a hostage to try to drive any agenda."
Watch the CNBC segment here: