Obama Introduces Economic Team
Calls For Stimulus Package "Right Away" As Tim Geithner Is Announced As His Treasury Secretary Pick
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Team Obama Leading The Way
President-elect Barack Obama is hoping to get a head-start on fixing the economy by naming a new treasury secretary as well a new director of the National Economic Council. Dean Reynolds reports.
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Obama: Automakers Unprepared
President-elect Obama says he was "surprised" automakers did not have a "better thought out" proposal for Congress.
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Obama's Race To Jan. 20th.
President-elect Barack Obama is working at record speed. He's already filled most of his White House positions and today he announced his new economic team.
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President-elect Barack Obama introduces his economic team during a news conference, Monday, Nov. 24, 2008 in Chicago. (AP)
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At a news conference 57 days before his inauguration, Mr. Obama also chose Lawrence Summers as director of his National Economic Council. Summers was treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton.
Geithner, 47, is a veteran of financial crises at home and overseas and has worked closely with the Bush administration in recent months.
Mr. Obama also announced two other members of his economic team in the making. He named Christina Romer as chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, and Melody Barnes as director of his White House Domestic Policy Council.
With the economy in crisis, Mr. Obama pledged Monday to honor the commitments the outgoing Bush administration has made to rescue financial markets and urged the new, incoming Congress to pass a major stimulus package "right away" to restore growth and create jobs.
Mr. Obama said that recent news "has made it even more clear that we are facing an economic crisis of historic proportions." Offering a grim prediction, he added, "Most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year."
"The economy is likely to get worse before it gets better," he said in a downbeat forecast, delivered as Americans head into the year-end holiday season.
He declined to say how big a spending package he wants to revive the economy, but he said, "It's going to be costly." Some Democratic lawmakers are speculating about a two-year measure as large as $700 billion.
Mr. Obama said his newly minted economic team offered "sound judgment and fresh thinking" at a time of economic peril.
Obama's principal theme was urgency.
"We do not have a minute to waste," he said, citing the turmoil in the financial markets as well as the deterioration of the broader economy.
At the same time, he expressed confidence the nation would weather the crisis "because we've done it before."
The president-elect was mildly critical of the Big Three automakers, saying he was surprised they did not have a better-thought-out plan for their future before asking Congress to approve $25 billion in emergency loans.
He said once he sees a plan, he expects "we're going to be able to shape a rescue."
Mr. Obama stepped to the microphones one day after his aides urged the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress to work with unusual speed in passing an economic stimulus package. Some lawmakers have said a measure in the range of $700 billion over two years may be passed, in hopes of achieving the president-elect's goal of securing 2.5 million jobs.
The plan is likely to far exceed the $175 billion Mr. Obama proposed during the campaign. It would include an infusion of money for infrastructure projects, new environmental technologies and tax cuts for low- and middle-income taxpayers.
The Republican National Committee criticized Mr. Obama over the plan.
“In his first major economic announcement since the election, President-elect Obama proposed billions of dollars in new government spending that will come at a burdensome cost to American families and small businesses," RNC Spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson said in a statement Monday afternoon. "The ‘cuts and sacrifices’ that President-elect Obama advocates will not be made by his friends in Washington, but rather by job creators facing devastating tax increases across America.”
Mr. Obama aides on Sunday called on the new Congress to pass by the Jan. 20 inauguration legislation that meets Mr. Obama's two-year goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs. Democratic congressional leaders said they would get to work when Congress convenes Jan. 6 with bigger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.
With the wounded economy worsening, the Obama team's new assertiveness was a recognition he needed to soothe financial markets with signs of leadership. It also foreshadowed a more hands-on role by Mr. Obama to influence congressional action during the final weeks of the transition.
"This is as big of an economic crisis as we've faced in 75 years," Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said Sunday on Face The Nation.
"We don't have time to waste here," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said. "We want to hit the ground running on January 20."
Echoing that, the second-ranking House Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said, "We expect to have during the first couple of weeks of January a package for the president's consideration when he takes office."
While Mr. Obama and his team are focused on the work of the new Congress, they also weighed in work pending before the current one.
Axelrod warned automakers seeking billions in government help to stave off collapse to devise a plan to retool and restructure that they can present to Congress next month. Otherwise, he said, "there is very little taxpayers can do to help them."
Adding to the government's bailout measures was a $20 billion rescue package announced Sunday to keep Citigroup afloat. Citi was another company that made, in retrospect, awful mortgage related investments, reports CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor.
"Citigroup is too large to fail," Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com told CBS News. "It's a large, global financial institution. If it were to fail, it would take the rest of the financial system, what's left of it, with it."
President Bush said on Monday that he consulted with Mr. Obama on the Citigroup rescue. Mr. Bush said there is "close cooperation" between his administration and the Obama camp.
Mr. Bush said earlier in the day that the government's dramatic rescue of Citigroup was necessary to "safeguard the financial system" and help the economy recover, and he said there could be more such moves if other institutions need help.
"We have made these kind of decisions in the past. We made one last night. And if need be we will make these kind of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future," Bush said.
The emphasis on the economy began Saturday when Mr. Obama outlined the framework to save or create 2.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. The scope of the recovery package is far more ambitious than Obama had spelled out during his presidential campaign, when he proposed $175 billion of spending and tax-cutting stimulus.
The plan will include public works projects similar to the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - bridge and road building and school repair, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds. And a significant element will be creating new jobs in environmentally friendly technologies - the "green economy." It also would include his proposals for tax relief for middle- and lower-income workers.
But there were no plans to balance the tax cuts with an immediate tax increase on the wealthy. During the campaign, Mr. Obama said he would pay for increased tax relief by raising taxes on people making more than $250,000.
"There won't be any tax increases in the January package," said one Obama aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the Obama package have not been fleshed out.
Mr. Obama could delay any tax increase to 2011, when current Bush administration tax cuts expire.
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio urged Mr. Obama to make that explicit. "Why wouldn't we have the president-elect say, `I am not going to raise taxes on any American in my first two years in office?"'
Some economists have endorsed spending up to $600 billion to revive the economy. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and former labor Secretary Robert Reich, a member of Mr. Obama's economic advisory board, both suggested $500 billion to $700 billion.
"I don't know what the number is going to be, but it's going to be a big number," Goolsbee said. "It has to be. The point is to, kind of, get people back on track and startle the thing into submission."
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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See all 324 CommentsPosted by Lady_Organs at 08:36 AM : Nov 24, 2008
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA Now THAT''s Funny! ROFLMAO
To the deluded "passengers" who were clueless enough to vote "Republican" this election...you will nonetheless be invited to sail and enjoy the economic progress that will be a hallmark of Obama''s Administration. As a result, the next time around, you will not be stupid enough to vote for the CROOKS that we''ve had to put up with for the past 8 years!
Watch and Learn folks!
Oh I see sorry...Go take your meds now and the delusions you suffer from will be all gone soon.
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Posted by demswin08
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Well God apparantly doesnt like you for he sends you economic pestillence. We good people who go to church are doing very well now because God smiles on our attendance.
By the way, judging from your comments, the "organ" that needs replacing is clearly your BRAIN.
This is outrageous.
We just did a $700 billion bail out package how could we pay for another $700 billion?
What happened to "pay as you go rules"?
This isn''t a stimulus package this is an olde socialist "public works" bill.
We need to balance the budget.
Americans are already beginning a $400 billion dollar stimulus from oil dropping from $147 barrel to $49 barrel.
We don''t need this $700 billion of additional debt.
The GOP needs to block this bill coming out of the Senate along with some "blue dog" Democrats.
Never in the History of the United States has the departure of a retiring President been so anxiously awaited.
We can%u2019t wait for the current Captain to go down with his ship; We are on his ship, we need the new Captain, Now.
By the way, judging from your comments, the "organ" that needs replacing is clearly your BRAIN.
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Posted by CitizenUSA
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I am rich and my family owns a business and its doing well since we offshored the manufacturing to China.
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Posted by mytoosense
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Yes, Friday.
And Dr. Phil did not make that statement it was Albert Einstein.
Your last statement was true however but only applies to you.
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Posted by demswin08 at 08:47 AM : Nov 24, 2008
If Einstein said it, he was quoting George Bernard Shaw.
Remember you were born Naked and broke.
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Posted by demswin08
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I was not born naked and broke. I was born into a very rich family and was properly dressed. This naked stuff is for liberals.
Like I said, you are lucky. You get to keep your organs for the next for years. Congrats! (You can thank us later).
, Friday.
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Posted by Lady_Organs
I like it,
happy hunting.
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Posted by demswin08
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God is on our side. He hates you baby killing liberals.
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Posted by tj217
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Lou Dobbs is a socialist.
Like I said, you are lucky. You get to keep your organs for the next for years. Congrats! (You can thank us later).
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Posted by CitizenUSA
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I have lots of intelligence. Thats why I am a republican.
Funny note: I just spoke with a Republican friend of mine and he was "sobbing" because, as he put: it "The PARTY is over". I said, "Do you mean the Republican party?" He hung up.
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Posted by demswin08
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God does so love me! What an awful thing to say. He does hate you liberals though.
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Posted by demswin08
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I talked to God last night on the phone.
Since you are "rich", money won''t be a problem as their paying crowd won''t be large enough to cover you expenses..unless breakfast, lunch and dinner is donated by Burger King!
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Posted by Lady_Organs
How did you get dressed in the womb?????
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Posted by demswin08
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Nurses?
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Posted by bozworth4
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The hospital staff put me in clothes right away so I was decent.
I DON''''T CARE IF GOD HATES US LIBERALS. THE REASON BEING I CANNOT BE MAD ABOUT INVISIBLE BEINGS HATING ME,IT''''S IRRATIONAL THOUGHT.
Besides lady I am Lucifer(aka Michael) and I know where you live.
How do you feel about possession,it''''s one of my favorite past times.
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Posted by demswin08
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Lucifer? No wonder you are celebrating dems winning.
Posted by Lady_Organs
I''d say Lou is more of a Projectionist/Isolationist.
Thanks to the Robber-Baron Bush years, he''s got quite a following.
He might be right a lot of the time, but I%u2019m getting tired of his tirades.
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Posted by Lady_Organs
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Clothes is what make a person decent? Can''t just be wrapped in any swaddling old rag to be decent. I seeeeeeeeeee!
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Posted by demswin08
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How awful.
Spell check change Protectionist to Projectionist.
That''s funny, he''s both.
Thanks to the Robber-Baron Bush years, he''''s got quite a following.
He might be right a lot of the time, but I%u2019m getting tired of his tirades.
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Posted by mytoosense
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A following of America hating socialists, nothing I would be proud of.
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Posted by tj217
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His is a socialist and everyone who backs up his arguements is a socialist too.
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Posted by ghostfighter
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No it worked out real well.
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Posted by tj217
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My parents filmed it on Super-8.
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Posted by ghostfighter
Are you kidding?
She caught enough fish to fill an Altoona Boat!
Congratulations on being one of the first to flop in the holds of her new trawler.
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Posted by bozworth4
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Yes so always make sure you are dressed appropriately. Jesus does not like slobs.
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Posted by ghostfighter
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My father and mother were church going christians!
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Posted by ghostfighter
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What? He doesnt like peppermint? Oh I''ll call him later and ask him.
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Posted by ghostfighter
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You have a dirty filthy mind.
Posted by mytoosense
????????
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Posted by ghostfighter
Lady_Organs, Happy Holidays, this ???????? is for you.
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Posted by ghostfighter
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Ya right.
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Posted by mytoosense
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It has been a banner day today. :)
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Posted by Lady_Organs
Pretty well sums up what most christians believe. This jesus dude, the one in the book, sure wasn''t dress good at birth. some say he was a pretty decent person. Been fun,point made. See ya!!!
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Posted by ghostfighter
Altoona, they say: if you catch a fish that smells, throw it back.
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Posted by tj217
====================
Super 8 was a type of movie film. Regular people had regular 8mm film but rich people like my family could afford the advancements of Super 8mm film.
Are still whining and spewing misinformation
Too much Fox News
They Propagandize -- you Get Dumber!!!!
Obama Is Not, Nor ever was a Socialist
That was BS Propogated by Mccain and Palin!!!
Just look who he''s putting in charge
Outright Bonafide Capitalist''s
Stop drinking the Red Kool Aid
Your Current President
Conservative RpugnantCon GWB
Has done more Socialization than any President in History--
Took over Aig Fannie Freddie and soon will own a major stake
In Citicorp etc.
You Retugs were dumb enough to put Dumbya -
That draft dodging, silver spoon fed disaster
in for two terms----
The Country Collapsed on his watch--
So shut up and give the incoming President
And his group of Highly skilled
Capitalist economics team a chance
To undue the GOP mess!!
Posted by tj217
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My family did not drink alcoholic beverages. We are good church going christians.
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