WASHINGTON — Saying that the United States economy was likely to worsen before it improves, President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday pledged to pursue a recovery plan “equal to the task ahead,” including the creation of a vast public-works program not just built around bridge and highway projects, but on creating “green jobs” and disseminating new technologies.
Even if the current economic crisis looks nothing like the Great Depression, Mr. Obama said, “This is a big problem, and it’s going to get worse.”
In a pre-taped interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Obama said that the survival of the domestic automobile industry was important; yet he said that any bailout should be tied to a reinvention and streamlining by Detroit to create an industry “that really works.”
With Congress expected to act within days on the automakers’ urgent pleas for help, Mr. Obama said the auto industry had made “repeated, strategic mistakes,” but that “I don’t think it’s an option to simply allow it to collapse.” He reiterated his position about the auto industry during a news conference later in the day.
"I think Congress is doing exactly the right thing by asking for a conditions-based assistance package that holds the auto industry’s feet to the fire," he said. Asked whether the automakers’ top executives should lose their jobs if they fail to perform, Mr. Obama took a tough position.
"If this management team that’s currently in place doesn’t understand the urgency of the situation and is not willing to make tough choices and adapt to new circumstances," he said, "then they should go."
As his transition team formulates its plans for recovery from one of the deepest economic declines in decades, Mr. Obama promised far tougher regulation of the financial sector.
“As part of our economic recovery package, what you will see coming out of my administration right at the center,” he said, “is a strong set of new financial regulations, in which banks, ratings agencies, mortgage brokers, a whole bunch of folks start having to be much more accountable and behave much more responsibly.”
He also said that he was disappointed that the current administration had not moved more decisively to ease the plight of troubled home owners, and said he would make it a top priority to help them.
The president-elect reiterated his pledge to give tax cuts to 95 percent of Americans, and he said that the days of the rich benefiting disproportionately while the middle class loses ground were a “real aberration.” He would not say whether he favored raising taxes quickly on the wealthiest Americans, or waiting for the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011, to the same effect.
With jobs evaporating and the recession deepening, the biggest news Mr. Obama made over the weekend, laid out in an address on Saturday, probably came in the details he offered for the recovery program he is trying to fashion with congressional leaders in hopes of being able to enact it shortly after being sworn in on Jan. 20.
It would be, he told NBC, “the largest infrastructure program in roads and bridges and other traditional infrastructure since the building of the federal highway system in the 1950s.”
His address followed a report on Friday indicating that the country lost 533,000 jobs in November alone, bringing the total number of jobs lost over the past year to nearly 2 million.
Mr. Obama would not put a dollar value on his proposed works program, but said the key in deciding which projects to fund would be not “the old, traditional politics” but in determining how the government would get “the most bang for the buck” while assuring accountability.
Mr. Obama’s wide-ranging NBC interview was aired a few hours before an afternoon news conference at which he said he would nominate General Eric Shinseki as the new secretary of veterans affairs. The general had a falling out with the Bush administration after saying before the invasion of Iraq that the occupation would require hundreds of thousands of American troops.
“He was right,” Mr. Obama told NBC’s Tom Brokaw. Mr. Obama sidestepped Mr. Brokaw’s question about the pace of a troop withdrawal from Iraq, saying he would confer with . generals on a plan “for a responsible drawdown.” He has hinted that his planned 16-month withdrawal of combat troops might be adjusted based on the generals’ advice.
He reiterated his intention to pursue “tough but direct” diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program.
And, at a time of considerable tension with Russia, he said that his administration would “reset U.S.-Russia relations” — without offering any elaboration of how he planned to do that.
Despite the bleak economic picture awaiting him, Mr. Obama sought to project an air of determined optimism.
“I am absolutely confident,” he said during his afternoon news conference, “that if we take the right steps over the coming months, that not only can we get the economy back on track, but we can emerge leaner, meaner and ultimately more competitive and more prosperous.”
Peter Baker and John. M. Broder contributed reporting.http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/gGWdjc
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