Cambridge, Massachusetts (CNN) President-elect Donald Trump's proposals to implement major tax cuts and roll back oversight of the financial industry risk triggering another economic crisis and crippling the country for a generation, warns former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

"The idea that we would repeal Dodd-Frank" -- the landmark financial reform legislation passed in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis -- "I think that would be a catastrophic kind of error," Summers told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files" podcast, produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.

Allowing that some portions of the 2010 law could be altered and improved, Summers said gutting it, as Trump and his advisers have signaled they will do, is a "very, very scary" notion that, if carried out, "would be taking immense and systemic risks of another financial crisis."

"Right now, the dangers are all on the side of the pendulum swinging too far back [towards deregulation] -- and I think that's very scary," said Summers.

Turning to Trump's tax proposals, which independent analysts say will skew toward the wealthy and cause massive budget deficits, Summers agreed there was no way to put the tax plan into effect without adding large levels of new debt. But, he said, the long term implications are what he finds most troubling.

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