President-elect Barack Obama Monday presented a selection of "the best minds in America" headed by Timothy Geithner as Treasury boss to guide his ambitious plan to revive the stricken US economy.
Recovery would not come overnight but there was no time to lose, Obama said as he moved unusually quickly for a president-elect in announcing his economic lieutenants including ex-Treasury secretary Larry Summers as a top adviser. At his second news conference since his election triumph on November 4, Obama said the US economy was trapped in a "vicious cycle" but touted a plan to create 2.5 million jobs, save Wall Street and revive Main Street.
Obama nominated Geithner to take charge of the Treasury and its 700-billion-dollar bailout for troubled financial institutions, as the US administration announced its latest rescue deal, this time for Citigroup. Vowing to uphold President George W. Bush''s far-reaching market commitments, Obama said: "We''ll need to bring together the best minds in America to guide us and that is what I''ve sought to do in assembling my economic team.
"I''ve sought leaders who could offer both sound judgement and fresh thinking, both a depth of experience and a wealth of bold new ideas and most of all, who share my fundamental belief that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers; that in this country, we rise and fall as one nation, as one people," the president-elect said.
Geithner, 47, brings up-close experience of the financial crisis having executed the US central bank''s burst of market activity from his perch atop the New York Fed. The former Treasury official "will start his first day on the job with a unique insight into the failures of today''s markets - and a clear vision of the steps we must take to revive them," Obama said.
The president-elect touted Summers, 53, as "one of the great economic minds of our time" as he named Bill Clinton''s blunt-talking final Treasury secretary as director of the powerful National Economic Council. Obama made three other administration picks Monday as the Democrat assembled a powerful brains trust to confront the nation''s biggest economic challenge since the Great Depression.
Christina Romer, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who is a leading expert on how the nation powered out of the 1930s depression, will chair Obama''s Council of Economic Advisers.
Melody Barnes, a senior campaign adviser who is an expert on health care reform, will be director of Obama''s Domestic Policy Council and her deputy will be Heather Higginbottom, who was policy director for his presidential campaign. Obama scheduled another press conference for Tuesday, where further economic appointments were expected and where he said he would present more details of a planned stimulus package that some reports said could top 700 billion dollars.
The package should be the first order of business for the new Congress in January, he said. "It is going to be of a size and scope that is necessary to get this economy back on track. I don''t want to get into numbers now," Obama said. "I think the most important thing to recognise is that we have a consensus, which is rare, between conservative economists and liberal economists, that we need a big stimulus package that will jolt the economy back into shape."
Despite the risk of stunningly high budget deficits, Obama vowed to keep his campaign promise to cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans by raising taxes on the richest, but stopped short of elaborating a timeline. Obama said Bush''s tax cuts were "disproportionately targeted to the wealthiest Americans. Those making more than a quarter of a million dollars a year can afford a little more," he said.
John Boehner, Republican leader in the House of Representatives, said: "This is a time to work together to address the most critical issue facing American families, and I look forward to working with president-elect Obama and his new economic team on solutions to get our economy moving again." But he added: "As we proceed, we should start by listening to the American people, who do not believe increasing government spending is the best way to put our economy back on track."