WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Already elected under historic circumstances, President-elect Barack Obama’s transition to power seems to be moving at unprecedented speed, beginning with his appointment of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., as his chief of staff two days after the Nov. 4 election.
“He’s beaten a lot of records during the course of the campaign,” said Obama Transition Team Co-chair John Podesta on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think people probably don’t know this, but with the exception of President Bush 41, which was an intraparty transition, no new president has named a cabinet secretary before December, going back through the Kennedy administration.”
While Obama and his team have balked from getting too involved, insisting that “the United States only has one government and one president at a time,” the ailing economy and the prospect of more lost jobs have forced his hand.
In his first meeting with President Bush in the Oval Office Nov. 10, Obama reportedly pressed the president to support emergency aid for the struggling auto industry and a broader economic stimulus package.
Though Bush has resisted extending part of the $700 billion bailout package to automakers, he indicated that he might support those measures if Democrats changed their stance on a free-trade agreement with Colombia, which Bush has long championed.
Emanuel indicated in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Sunday, however, that Obama would likely refuse that offer. “You don’t link those essential needs to some other trade deal,” he said.
This disagreement on economic policy signals the stark differences in philosophy between the incumbent and his successor that may spark a reversal of some of the decisions made in the past eight years.
Podesta said Obama and his team have already begun reviewing Bush’s executive orders. “We’re looking in virtually every agency to see where we can move forward, whether that’s on energy transformation, on improving health care, on stem cell research,” he said.
“There’s a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action,” Podesta continued, “and I think we’ll see the president do that to try to restore the — a sense that the country is working on behalf of the common good, that we’re going to try to restore wages, give people the right kind of ways that they can build on their own lives, and when they work hard that they’ll be rewarded for it.”
On national security, Obama advisers have reported policies that are widely divergent from the Bush administration’s.
The president-elect has long indicated his intent to start withdrawing combat forces from Iraq—a process to be completed in 16 months—and renew the focus on Afghanistan that had been lost in the past four years.
According to news reports, Obama advisors say the incoming commander-in-chief intends to take a more regional approach to the war in Afghanistan, including possible dialogue with Iran and with the Afghan government along with “reconcilable” elements of the Taliban. And he intends to ramp up efforts to find Osama bin Laden.
Obama may also be considering closing the infamous Guantanamo Bay, a move Bush considered as necessary but found to be impractical, but a move which his successor pledged to make. “We need to bring to a close this sad chapter in American history, and begin a chapter that passes the might of our military to the freedom of our diplomacy and the power of our alliances. And while we are at it, we can close down Guantanamo and we can restore habeas corpus and we can lead with our ideas and our values,” Obama said May 8 in Richmond, Va.
But even Gitmo will have to stand in line as the economy will demand the administration’s foremost attention.
That was evident last Friday when Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, in their first press conference since the election, focused almost solely on the economy.
That morning, the pair huddled with a 17-member transitional council of economic advisers that included former Treasury Secretaries Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, billionaire businessman Warren Buffett and other leaders in business and politics.
“Immediately after I become president I am going to confront this economic crisis head on by taking all necessary steps to ease the credit crisis, help hard-working families and restore growth and prosperity,” said Obama, surrounded by Emanuel and his economic advisors, who he said were already working on developing “a strong set of policies” to respond to the crisis.
The Obama-Biden appearance came on the heels of more dour economic news. According to the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report issued Friday morning, 240,000 jobs were lost in October, increasing the tally of lost jobs to 1.2 million this year and pushing the unemployment rate up to 6.5 percent. The nation hasn’t seen such a towering jobless rate in 14 years.
And as corporate giants falter, it’s expected to get worse.
Ford Motor Company has said it may have to cut staff and stem spending after a $3 billion operating loss in the last quarter. And limping auto behemoth General Motors Corp. announced it bled a copious $4.2 billion in losses and that it, too, is in danger of running out of cash.
This “hardship goes far beyond the individual auto companies to the countless suppliers, small businesses and communities throughout our nation who depend on a vibrant American auto industry,” Obama said.
Beyond what he asked of President Bush, Obama indicated his willingness to offer short- and long-term aid to automakers contingent upon their willingness to retool their industry to make cleaner, more energy-efficient vehicles.
More generally, he renewed his commitment to carefully overseeing the administration of the $850 billion Wall Street bailout package and to championing a short- and long-term rescue plan for the middle-class, an issue on which he spoke with the most authority.
“One thing I can say with certainty is we’re going to need to see a stimulus package passed,” Obama said, emphasizing his preference to see it passed “sooner rather than “later.” “If it doesn’t get done during the lame duck session of Congress, it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States.”
In addition to a stimulus package, Obama said he would also extend unemployment insurance benefits and award tax cuts to 95 percent of working-class families. On the uppermost question in people’s minds, however—Obama’s choice for treasury secretary—he said not a word and hasn’t since.
Some names being bandied about so far include Summers and Volcker, who, as Obama’s current advisors may have an inside track. Summers was the World Bank’s chief economist from 1991 to 1993. From July 1999 to January 2001 he served as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton.
Volcker, an investment banker by trade, served as chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Carter and Reagan and headed the investigation into the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq.
Also. in the running is Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Earlier this year, he helped steer the acquisition of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase and the bailouts of American International Group Inc. and Lehman Brothers.
“I want to move with all deliberate haste but I want to emphasize ‘deliberate’ as well as ‘haste,’” Obama said of his choice. “I’m proud of the choice I made of vice president partly because we did it right. I’m proud of the choice we made of chief of staff because we thought it through, I think it’s important in all these key positions to get it right and not be so rushed that we end up making mistakes.”
