Still 57 days away from his arrival in office, Barack Obama will roll out his economic team and portions of his sweeping recovery agenda later today. Over the weekend we learned that New York Federal Reserve president Timothy Geithner will be Obama’s Treasury secretary, and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson will be named Commerce secretary. Clinton Treasury chief Larry Summers will head up Obama’s National Economic Council, and just this morning Politico also reported that the president-elect will tap Berkeley professor Christina Romer to head his Council of Economic Advisers (she once co-wrote a paper called “What Ends Recessions”!).
Alongside the announcement of these appointees come reports that Obama has broadly expanded the scope of his economic plan, which has ballooned from the $175 billion he spoke of last month to somewhere in the realm of $500 to $700 billion. He hopes to get this bill from Congress on his very first day in office, according to Democratic congressional allies. In addition, adviser David Axelrod said yesterday that Obama is considering allowing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy to expire in 2010 rather than repealing them right off the bat.
Remember when we had a president who relaxed on the weekends and vacationed the week of Thanksgiving?
Obama Will Get Stimulus Bill First Day, Democrats Say [Bloomberg]
