Source:
Washington PostObama Expands Stimulus Goals
As Economic Outlook Grows More Dire, Early Target for Job Growth Is Bolstered
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 21, 2008; Page A01
President-elect Barack
Obama has expanded his goals for a massive federal stimulus package to keep pace with the increasingly grim economic outlook, aiming to create or preserve at least 3 million jobs over the next two years. The more aggressive target, up from 2.5 million jobs set a month ago, comes after a four-hour meeting last week in which
Obama's top economic advisers told him the economy is now expected to lose as many as 3.5 million jobs over the next year. Obama was told that could drive unemployment, currently at 6.7 percent, above 9 percent, a figure not seen since the recession of the early 1980s. With liberal and conservative economists calling on the government to spend $800 billion to $1.3 trillion to stanch the bleeding,
the greater danger to the nation, Obama was told, lies in doing too little rather than too much.
Given that gloomy forecast, Obama last week presented congressional Democrats with a proposal to dedicate $675 billion to $775 billion over the next two years to middle-class tax cuts, aid to strapped state governments and investments in domestic priorities such as infrastructure, health-care technology and education -- a package designed to jolt the economy while deterring further layoffs and putting people back to work. Congressional aides said they have talked with Obama's team about tacking on initiatives that could drive the overall price tag as high as $850 billion, a figure more in line with economists' recommendations. But with resistance expected from Senate Republicans and some fiscally conservative Democrats, an Obama adviser said the team has settled for now on $775 billion as the highest figure likely to win congressional approval and be ready for Obama's signature soon after he takes office Jan. 20.
....
Summers said Obama's budget team is "scrubbing" various proposals for "basic soundness." The team also is
developing ideas to make expenditures transparent to the public, perhaps through regular progress reports or even Internet sites where "people could monitor the fraction of each project that had been spent out," he said.
Obama also plans to
mandate that states use the money within a time frame or be forced to return it. And his team is looking into public-private partnerships as a way to make the money stretch even further.
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, have agreed to ban earmarks, which target funds for lawmakers' pet projects.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/20/AR2008122001395.html?hpid=topnews
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