Obama stresses urgency of pursuing economy fix

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama sought to assert his authority over the country’s deep-ening financial crisis Monday, unveiling his economic team and making it clear that he will not wait until Inauguration Day to set his plans for recovery in motion.

Declaring that America is caught in a “vicious cycle” affecting both Wall Street and Main Street, Obama said his advisers will begin work immediately toward passage of a stimulus package large enough to jolt the faltering economy back into shape.

“And that work starts today, because the truth is, we don’t have a minute to waste,” Obama said at a news conference in Chicago. “With our economy in distress, we cannot hesitate and we cannot delay. Our families can’t afford to keep on waiting and hoping for a solution.”

Timothy F. Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, will lead that effort as Treasury secretary, along with Lawrence H. Summers, the former president of Harvard University and Geithner’s mentor for the past decade, who was named to lead the National Economic Council. Berkeley professor Christina D. Romer will head the Council of Economic Advisers, which advises the president on domestic and international economic matters.

Geithner, 47, will coordinate the Obama administration’s response to the faltering economy, serving as the primary architect of the stimulus package. While Geithner will assume broad authority to direct hundreds of billions of dollars in government funds from his post at Treasury, Summers is expected to have Obama’s ear as the head of the NEC and could play a key role in synthesizing the economic advice the new president receives.

Obama has maintained a low profile since his election victory, resigning his Senate seat and quietly vetting his Cabinet as Congress and the White House haggled over proposals for a stimulus package and a bailout of the automobile industry, neither of which came to pass.

But in his second news conference since becoming president-elect, Obama appeared more willing to assume ownership of the current turmoil, easing away from his emphatic statement that America has only “one president at a time” and signaling a shift in the balance of power between the current and incoming administrations as the financial crisis worsens.

Obama urged Congress to convene in early January to pass a new stimulus package, with the goal of having it ready for the new president’s signature on Jan. 20. And he made it clear that he expects Bush’s economic team to work with his own during the transition.

“A lot of authority has already been provided to the administration,” Obama said. “And we need to make sure that that authority is used forcefully in the coming weeks to stabilize the current situation.”

Obama was briefed by Bush on Monday as the government agreed to protect Citigroup from billions in potential losses from troubled assets. The president-elect said the news about Citigroup added to the evidence that the country faces “an economic crisis of historic proportions.”

Bush appeared reconciled to Obama’s newly aggressive approach to the economic crisis. In comments to reporters Monday morning, Bush promised that “anytime we’re to make a big decision during the transition, he will be informed, as will his team. … It’s important for the American people to know that there is close cooperation.”

Obama would not say whether he agrees with Democrats in Congress who are calling for the government to pump up to $700 billion into the economy. But he emphasized the need for quick and transparent action, saying: “If we do not act swiftly and boldly, most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year.”

During his campaign, Obama vowed to raise taxes on couples making more than $250,000 a year, and he said Monday that he has not decided whether to try to repeal the Bush administration’s tax cuts for wealthier Americans or to allow those cuts to expire in 2010. He reiterated, however, that “the very wealthiest among us will pay a little bit more.”

He also said Detroit automobile executives must make a stronger case before they receive billions of dollars from the government. He called the auto industry “resistant to change” and said help is for making automakers more competitive in a global economy, “not just kicking the can down the road.”