Obama names advisers to help right the economy

[February 06, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is naming a team of outside advisers to help him steer the nation's economy out of a tailspin while trying to rally support for his financial recovery plan.

The president was to announce the team members Friday as the White House braced for more bad news in the unemployment report for January. Obama planned to use the Economic Recovery Advisory Board announcement as a way to address the millions of out-of-work Americans.

The president also is likely to make a fresh appeal for his economic recovery package.

On Thursday, Obama implored House Democrats to reject delaying tactics and political gamesmanship that often stymies legislation and keep a promise to voters who booted Republicans from power.

"They didn't vote for the status quo; they sent us here to bring change. We owe it to them to deliver," the Democratic president said, eliciting cheers and applause from the Democratic rank-and-file gathered for a three-day retreat in Williamsburg, Va.

"This is not a game," he added. "This is not a contest for who's in power and who's up and who's down."

In a feisty speech that sounded like a campaign rally address, Obama took a sharper tone than he has in recent weeks and seemed to be sending a message to Republicans, who voted as a block against the plan in the House and who are demanding massive changes to the measure in the Senate.

"We are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin," Obama said -- an implicit criticism of the GOP that was in power during that period.

Obama has already tapped Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman and a top Obama adviser, as the leader of the high-profile panel of advisers. Members will include former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, TIAA-CREF President-CEO Roger Ferguson and Harvard University professor Martin Feldstein, who wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece last year titled "John McCain Has a Tax Plan To Create Jobs."

Obama friend and campaign finance chairwoman Penny Pritzker also is on the board, as is Caterpillar Inc. Chairman-CEO Jim Owens and General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt. Two labor officials -- Anna Burger of Service Employees International Union and Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO -- also were named to the 15-member board designed to offer Obama advice as he seeks a way to weather the crisis and rebuild the economy.

To that end, Obama expressed frustration with his economic stimulus legislation being debated in the Senate. Lawmakers on Thursday inched toward a compromise package of spending and tax cuts that could cost well over $900 billion.

"We lost half a million jobs each month for two consecutive months," Obama told reporters traveling with him to Williamsburg.

"Things could continue to decline. We'll know the number tomorrow. Every economist, even those who may quibble with the details of the makeup in a package, will agree that if you've got a trillion dollars in lost demand this year, and a trillion dollars in lost demand next year, then you've got to have a big enough recovery package to actually make up for those lost jobs and lost demand."

The Labor Department on Thursday reported that the number of newly unemployed workers seeking jobless benefits hit the highest level since 1982. Friday's employment report was expected to creep closer to double digits, up from the 7.5 percent rate economists documented in December.

[Associated Press; By PHILIP ELLIOTT]

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