by Frank James
President-elect Barack Obama seized on today's report that the economy lost 524,000 jobs in December with the unemployment rate rising to 7.2 percent, to renew his call for quick action on a large economic stimulus in order to prevent the economic situation from worsening significantly.
"Clearly, the situation is dire, it is deteriorating, and it demands urgent and dramatic action," Obama said, noting that the economy lost jobs in every month last year, with 2008's total job losses amounting to 2.6 million, the worst drop since World War II.
The president-elect made his comments at a press conference to announce the completion of his national security team with retired Navy Adm. Dennis Blair being named national intelligence director and Leon Panetta, a former congressman and Clinton Administration official, named to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
Obama led off the news event with comments on the economic situation. Questions about his plans to help turnaround the economy after he assumes office in little over a week dominated the brief question and answer session following his opening statement.
Responding to criticisms, particularly from Democrats and Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman that the amount of spending he's reportedly going to propose, as much as $775 billion over two years, isn't enough to boost the ailing economy, Obama said that he welcomed good ideas from his critics.
"I want this to work. This is not a(n) intellectual exercise and there's no pride of authorship," Obama said. "If members of Congress have good ideas, if they can identify a project for me that will create jobs in an efficient way; that does not hamper our ability to, over the long term, get control of our deficit; that is good for the economy, then I'm going to accept it.
"If Paul Krugman has a good idea in terms of how to spend money efficiently and effectively to jump-start the economy, then we're going to do it. If somebody has a(n) idea for a tax cut that is better than a tax cut we've proposed, we will embrace it."
Obama clearly meant to set a different tone than the one President Bush was criticized for over the past eight years in which consultation with Congress and his opponents was either an afterthought or failed to occur at all.
Obama added that while some critics of his stimulus plan, which he has yet to formally unveil, have criticized it as too small, others have said it was too large.
Asked if getting consensus on the size and type of stimulus was harder than he had expected, Obama smiled and said: "You're assuming that I expected it to be easy... it's always hard. But I have confidence that we're going to get it done."
But what Obama appeared to want to communicate most was his sense of urgency to get federal stimulus money flowing into the larger economy.
"What we can't do is drag this out, when we just saw half a million more jobs lost," Obama said. "You know, the American people are struggling. And behind these statistics that we see flashing on the screens are real lives, real suffering, real fears. And it is my job to make sure that Congress stays focused in the weeks to come and get this done. And I have every expectation that we will get it done."
Comments
Does he really think he can wave a magic wand and make this all go away. There will be a lot of finger pointing at Bush once BHO is in office. This is a global problem - NOT just a USA issue.
Posted by: seattleguy | January 9, 2009 2:22 PM
Infrastructure jobs = short-term employment, at least under a stimulus plan. Short-term jobs, however, if coupled with a plan to create long-term job, such as implementing a green economy, could put millions of people to work in stable employment and thankfully the Obama economic team seems to understand this.
The problems with the economy and jobs being so interconnected will require a truly interconnected plan that covers both short-term needs and long-term stability. Obama's plan appears to address both.
My fear is that Congress - read Republicans - will pull apart the plan and insist on fully funding only the parts they feel are important for their own constituents or refuse to fund the parts they don't believe to be "fiscally responsible." (which is hilarious when you consider all of the useless deficit spending they rubber stamped for W. the last eight years) Such cherry-picking would cripple the entire recovery, which is of course what the Republicans want, whether that was their intention or not.
Posted by: Big Orange Satan | January 9, 2009 2:53 PM
YES! We must end the war and have a jobs program based on:
1. clean energy
2. bullet trains in the medians of interstate highways
3. forcing auto companies to re-introduce the 'killed' electric car
4. cradle to grave health care fo all americans
5. no more war profiteers
6. no more oil profiteers.
Posted by: we can fix this | January 9, 2009 5:08 PM
Obama sounds like an infomercial- "you must act NOW"! Obviously, there's a reason they say that... if you think about it long-enough, you might come to your senses.
And is gambling $1 trillion on his unproven ideas "dramatic" enough? Someone needs to explain to Obama that government doesn't have a good record of picking winners in the marketplace.
Regardless of what kind of jobs this guy with zero business experience thinks we "need to" create, why not "dramatic" tax cuts to small business and entrepreneurs... so they can produce the jobs that they've repeatedly demonstrated the ability to generate?
Apparently the irony is lost on The One that an unemployed Silicon Valley engineer should be delighted to pour cement in a "patriotic" make-work program, instead of allowing tax cuts to help free-market enterprise leverage his skills a bit more effectively.
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2008/12/biden-runs-interferrence-for-big.html
Posted by: Reaganite Republican | January 16, 2009 6:04 PM