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Obama says he wants to trim the fat

November 26, 2008

In what is becoming one of the most unusual transfers of power in U.S. history, President-elect BARACK OBAMA yesterday said that he had a, quote, “mandate to move the country in a new direction” as it faces an economic emergency the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

At a news conference in Chicago Tuesday, Obama said he and his team must be thinking about the long-run and the short-term:

Obama continued crafting a team that will tackle the crisis by announcing the appointment of economist PETER ORSZAG as his budget director. Obama said the Orszag’s role will be to jettison, quote, “those programs we don’t need and insisting that those we do need operate in a cost-effective way.”

Obama says his economic team will be rethinking where tax money will be spent:

Fiscal restraint to help reduce the burgeoning national deficit is one of the incoming administration’s top projects but Obama insisted that it will sit on the back burner until the economy show signs that it has sufficiently bounced back.

The president-elect said his immediate mission is, quote, “to jump start the economy.”

Obama, who introduced his Treasury secretary and director of the National Economic Council the day before, said that Americans are thirsting for, quote, “common sense, smart government” without the partisanship that has paralyzed it in the past.”

Currently the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Orszag, quote; “knows where the bodies are buried”, according to Obama. Essentially, the CBO’s function is to provide Congress with an objection analysis it needs to make budget decisions.

With less than two months to go before he’s sworn in as president, Obama has taken a proactive position to hit the ground running so that an economic plan for recovery will already be in place by January 20th. By doing so, he seems to be acting more as co-commander in chief than a president-elect waiting in the wings to assume power.

Picture from ABC NEWS - WGNS is your ABC Affiliate

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Written by Michael Lansing · Filed Under Featured 

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