TW: Am starting a new feature amidst these challenging times, The Bright Side. Rest assured the dim reality will continue to receive coverage as well. Robert Reich outlines how Obama is moving with all appropriate haste to position his administration to hit the ground running come January 20th. Appoint the best people and prepare a massive stimulus plan focused on investment in those areas in which the U.S. has under-invested.
From Reich:
"Obama's immediate challenge is to fill the leadership vacuum created by a lame-duck president with historically-low approval ratings who seems to have lost interest in his job (at this writing, he's out of the country) and who's disappeared from the media...
How does Obama manage this feat? Two ways: (1) appointing a highly-capable economic team, and (2) telling the nation what he plans to do starting the afternoon of January 20. Specifically:
1) The members of Obama's new economic team fit the bill...They're relatively young, in their late 30s or 40s, representing a generational change and a fresh start. Despite their youth, they're also experienced...All are pragmatists...They are not visionaries but we don't need visionaries when the economic perils are clear and immediate. We need competence. Obama could not appoint a more competent group
2) The President-Elect has also signaled the country what he wants to do: enact an "Economic Recovery Plan" that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011...about $600 to $700 billion [stimulus plan]. Its focus will be on infrastructure of a sort that will not only put people to work but also improve the productivity of the economy. His words: "We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels; fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.
At a time when aggregate demand is shriveling because consumers aren't spending and investors have stopped investing, and exports are shrinking, Obama recognizes that government must be the spender of last resort. He will combine old-fashioned Kaynesian economics with newly-fashioned public investments to pull the economy out of its slump.By putting his economic team in place barely three weeks after he was elected, and telling the nation what he plans to do immediately after he takes office, the President-Elect is asserting leadership at a time when the the Bush administration has all but abdicated."
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-obama-is-already-taking-charge.html
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