NEW YORK— New President-elect Barack Obama still has 70 days left of preparing for his move into the White House, but insiders and members of his transition team revealed this weekend plans by the President-elect to act quickly and comprehensively on issues ranging from the economy to stem cell research.
Head of the Obama transition team John Podesta told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that Obama “intends to move very quickly” with topics “across the board, whether it’s national security, the economy, … health care, energy, and the environment.”
Making the transition from being a junior Senator in a lame-duck session in Congress to becoming President, Obama emphasized that he wanted was moving with “deliberate haste” in assembling an economic team, a Cabinet, and tight-knit group of advisers to work with in his administration.
Last Friday, Obama held his first press conference since being elected President and discussed the deepening economic gloom that catapulted his candidacy and prompted his emphasis on providing relief for the middle class. With a large majority of Americans noting that the economy was their number one concern, Obama has made it his as well.
“Priority one is the economy,” said Rahm Emanuel on ABC’s “This Week,” maintaining that Obama’s tax plan to cut taxes for the poorest 95% of Americans would be a top priority come January. “The middle class have been squeezed consistently by rising costs on education, health care and energy, as well as a diminishing income,” he said, “And their median household income has declined $2,000. And you must have an economic program that focuses on them.”
“The core economic part of his strategy is the middle class,” Emanuel stressed. “That is the basis of it … And the economic plan was built on that.”
But while most Americans are fully eyeing their pension plans, 401(k)s, and paychecks, Obama as other changes in sight that won’t have anything to do with the economy, but instead on the policies of George W. Bush.
Obama wants “all the Bush executive orders reviewed,” Podesta said, and will “decide which ones should be kept, and which ones should be repealed, and which ones should be amended.”
Of those that Obama wants repealed or amended, he would issue executive orders as he sees fit.
“There's a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action,” Podesta reasoned, “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.”
Among those specific Bush procedures that Obama and his transition team cite as potentially reversible could include mandates regarding stem cell research, offshore drilling, and health care, Podesta said.
But while Obama and his surrogates discuss the future, one thing that all in Obama’s camp have stressed is for sure: that Obama is not President yet; George W. Bush is. Until that changes, Americans won’t know if Obama’s promise of hope will be carried out to their liking.
