Early transition? Obama takes the lead in economic crisis

[babylonsister]

Early transition? Obama takes the lead in economic crisis
By James Rosen and Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama took center stage in the economic crisis for the third day running Sunday as he dispatched aides to pitch his rapidly expanding stimulus plan on TV and announced plans to introduce his economic team Monday.

Appearing on the Sunday talk shows, his advisers indicated that the ambitious plan he announced Saturday to create 2.5 million public works and alternative-energy jobs, will be far more costly than previously discussed. Along with other possible steps to turn around the economy, it could cost the government as much as $700 billion.

This would be four times the size of the $175 billion stimulus package Obama promoted as a White House candidate.

"The economy has gotten much worse since then," Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist and top Obama adviser, told CBS News' "Face the Nation."

"This is as big of an economic crisis as we've faced in 75 years, and we've got to do something that's up to the task of confronting that," Goolsbee said.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/56348.html

[Triana]

1. If we can give $700 Billion to the ^$%&*^$@($@ Wall Street banks...

...then we can damned well spend that much helping MAIN street and working people and people facing joblessness and foreclosure. That's the ONLY way this economy will get moving again, IMO.