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WASHINGTON, D. C.: US President-elect Barack Obama
will meet Monday with key congressional leaders to discuss a
multibillion-dollar economic stimulus plan Democrats hope to pass
shortly after Obama takes office.
The meeting will be Obama’s
first with Capitol Hill lawmakers since his historic November 4
election victory, and his first high-profile act in Washington after
moving to the capital from his Chicago home on Sunday.
Obama will meet the heads of both
chambers of Congress, including Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid
and House of Representatives speaker Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
ABC news reported that House
Republican leader John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch
McConnell are expected to participate in the talks, though
Republican congressional aides did not confirm a schedule.
The talks will center on a
recovery plan for the troubled US economy, which will be the first
priority of his new administration.
For several weeks Obama’s
economic team have been in talks over a future package. The
negotiations were almost wrapped up before Christmas, Vice
President-elect Joe Biden said in an interview.
According to US media reports,
the bill to be presented to lawmakers could exceed $850 billion,
while some commentators say the eventual package could top a
trillion dollars.
To revive the world’s largest
economy, struggling amid global financial turmoil, the incoming
White House economic team hopes to create three million jobs—80
percent of which will be in the private sector.
The stimulus plan will attempt to
favor long-term infrastructure and job creation projects over
tactics aimed at boosting consumer spending, according to Obama
advisor Lawrence Summers, tapped to head the new White House
National Economic Council.
With the United States facing
gloomy forecasts of up to 10-percent unemployment and a deepening
recession in 2009—likely “the bleakest economic outlook since
World War II”—Summers said creating three million new jobs was a
“key pillar” of Obama’s plan.
“In this crisis, doing too
little poses a greater threat than doing too much,” Summers wrote
in an editorial in The Washington Post.
“Any sound economic strategy in
the current context must be directed at both creating the jobs that
Americans need and doing the work that our economy requires.”
The Wall Street Journal reported
Monday that Obama planned to include in his stimulus package a
$300-billion tax break.
The president-elect hopes the tax
break for people earning up to $200,000 a year that also includes a
one-year tax credit for companies that hire or rehire more
people—worth some $40 to $50 billion—will help “create or
save” three million jobs by 2011.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said
Monday’s meetings are designed to get legitimate bipartisan input
and to convey a sense of urgency about the state of the economy.
“We’ve seen statistics,
we’ve seen Christmas sales, consumer confidence and obviously
upcoming job numbers which underscore that a very serious situation
has only gotten worse and isn’t likely to get better any time
soon,” Gibbs told reporters traveling with Obama.
But he agreed with predictions
that it was “very unlikely” that the stimulus package would be
ready by January 20, when Obama takes office.
Obama flew to Washington from
Chicago as he faced the first major embarrassment over his cabinet
lineup as his choice for commerce secretary was forced to pull out.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson
said he was withdrawing his name from contention for the economic
job owing to an investigation into a financial company doing
business with his state.
In a joint statement issued with
Obama, Richardson said he had asked the president-elect to pull his
name from the Senate confirmation process with “great sorrow.”
Obama is also expected to discuss
with lawmakers the legislative agenda of the new Congress, which
will meet for the first time next week.
--AFP
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