CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to scour wasteful spending from the federal budget to help offset an investment in a huge recovery plan to jump-start the ailing economy, a pledge that he called part of his “mandate to move the country in a new direction.”
For the second straight day, Mr. Obama called a news conference to explain how his administration would respond to the nation’s financial crisis. He named no specific government programs to be eliminated but said tightening the budget was part of the sacrifice he would ask Americans to endure.
“We can’t sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists or interest groups,” Mr. Obama said. “We simply can’t afford it.”
With an eye on the economy, Mr. Obama announced that he would nominate Peter R. Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget. After running the Congressional Budget Office for nearly two years, as well as handling economic policy in the Clinton and Bush administrations, Mr. Orszag “doesn’t need a map to tell him where the bodies are buried in the federal budget,” Mr. Obama said.
Together with a two-year economic recovery package of hundreds of billions of dollars in spending and tax cuts, Mr. Obama hopes to win early approval in Congress next year for separate language committing the government to actions that would bring deficits under control once the economy recovers.
Advisers to Mr. Obama and to Congressional leaders say they have hardly begun to figure out what kind of process they could devise to enforce fiscal discipline. But Obama advisers, in particular, consider it essential to signal that Democrats are not using the economic crisis to go on a spending binge without concerns for future deficits.
“In these challenging times, when we are facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s a necessity.”
Budget controls are also considered important to securing the votes of conservative Democrats in the House and the Senate, who might otherwise balk at an economic stimulus package that could exceed $500 billion. One of those at the center of the effort to draw up proposals is Rahm Emanuel, who was the fourth-ranking House Democratic leader until Mr. Obama tapped him to be the White House chief of staff.
Mr. Obama, who on Tuesday passed the three-week mark of his election, is seeking to take a more forceful and visible role in the transition to power. He said he would not overstep his role as president-elect but added that Americans should know that he and his ever-growing circle of advisers were preparing to tackle the economic problems.
“We don’t intend to stumble into the next administration,” Mr. Obama said.
A briefing on Monday, followed by one on Tuesday with another set for Wednesday will triple the amount of time that Mr. Obama has spent in public view as president-elect. His aides limited the questions to four on Tuesday, but Mr. Obama spoke about his margin of victory in the most expansive way since the election.
Mr. Obama called his triumph “decisive,” saying that voters were demanding change in Washington. He recorded 365 Electoral College votes to 173 for Senator John McCain, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate in decades to win states like Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia.
“I don’t think that there’s any question that we have a mandate to move the country in a new direction and not continue the same old practices that have gotten us into the fix that we’re in,” Mr. Obama said.
“But I won 53 percent of the vote. That means 46 or 47 percent of the country voted for John McCain,” he added. “It’s important, as I said on election night, that we enter into the new administration with a sense of humility and a recognition that wisdom is not the monopoly of any one party.”
The top Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Finance Committee issued a joint statement on Tuesday praising the selection of Mr. Orszag, calling him a smart and straightforward expert on the economy. Mr. Obama also said Tuesday that he would nominate Rob Nabors, the staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, to be Mr. Orszag’s deputy.
Mr. Obama cited, as an example of the possible cuts he expects Mr. Orszag and the rest of his budget team to find, the findings of a recent government report indicating that farmers whose incomes exceeded $2.5 million had most likely been mistakenly paid about $49 million in government subsidies from 2003 to 2006.
He did not offer any other specific targets, and by itself, correcting the problem with the farm program would make an undetectable dent in the government’s soaring deficits. After the financial recovery is under way, Mr. Obama said, the chase after wasteful spending will begin in earnest.
“Just because a program, a special interest tax break or corporate subsidy is hidden in this year’s budget does not mean that it will survive the next,” he said. “The old ways of Washington simply can’t meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.”
Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington.http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc
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