Cal Professor to Head Econ Advisors

  KCBS’ Chris Filippi Reports

Mr. Obama says that Romer will offer independent analysis in her role as head of his council of economic advisors. Her colleagues at UC Berkeley agree.

Haas School of Business Financial Institutions Professor Jim Wilcox says Romer is an excellent teacher.

”This goes a long way towards being effective in the position that she’s going to be in, because being able to clearly and smartly explain the basic issues at hand is what is really needed in that position. She will do extremely well in that job,” said Wilcox.

Cal Economics Professor ALAN AUERBACH says Romer brings the proper outlook to the job.

”Like other good economists she performs judgments based on evidence, and as new ideas come along she’ll be willing to consider them,” said Auerbach.

Romer, and her husband David are both economics professors at U.C. Berkeley. Their work has been praised by both Democrats and Republicans.

Mr. Obama also tapped New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner as his treasury secretary on Monday, turning to a veteran of financial crises at home and overseas to lead the rescue of the nation's swooning economy.

At a news conference 57 days before his inauguration, Mr. Obama also chose Lawrence Summers as director of his National Economic Council. Summers was treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Obama said that recent news "has made it even more clear that we are facing an economic crisis of historic proportions." Offering a grim prediction, he added, "Most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year."

He said his newly minted economic aides offered "sound judgment and fresh thinking" at a time of economic peril.

Mr. Obama stepped to the microphones one day after his aides urged the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress to work with unusual speed in passing an economic stimulus package. Some lawmakers have said a measure in the range of $700 billion over two years may be passed, in hopes of achieving the president-elect's goal of securing 2.5 million jobs.

Mr. Obama takes the oath of office on Jan. 20 as the nation's 44th president, and will confront economic difficulties as great as any since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Congress begins its work on Jan. 6.

"The economy is likely to get worse before it gets better," he said in a downbeat forecast, delivered as Americans head into the year-end holiday season.

At the same time, he expressed confidence the nation would weather the crisis "because we've done it before."

Mr. Obama spoke one day after a senior adviser, David Axelrod said, "We want to hit the ground running on Jan. 20."

Echoing that, the second-ranking House Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said, "We expect to have during the first couple of weeks of January a package for the president's consideration when he takes office."

While Mr. Obama and his team are focused on the work of the new Congress, they also weighed in work pending before the current one.

Axelrod warned automakers seeking billions in government help to stave off collapse to devise a plan to retool and restructure that they can present to Congress next month. Otherwise, he said, "there is very little taxpayers can do to help them."

The emphasis on the economy began Saturday when Mr. Obama outlined the framework to save or create 2.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. The scope of the recovery package is far more ambitious than Mr. Obama had spelled out during his presidential campaign, when he proposed $175 billion of spending and tax-cutting stimulus. The new plan will be significantly larger and incorporate his campaign ideas for new jobs in environmentally friendly technologies _ the "green economy." It also would include his proposals for tax relief for middle- and lower-income workers.

But there were no plans to balance the tax cuts with an immediate tax increase on the wealthy. During the campaign, Mr. Obama said he would pay for increased tax relief by raising taxes on people making more than $250,000.

"There won't be any tax increases in the January package," said one Obama aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the Obama package have not been fleshed out.

Mr. Obama could delay any tax increase to 2011, when current Bush administration tax cuts expire.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio urged Mr. Obama to make that explicit. "Why wouldn't we have the president-elect say, `I am not going to raise taxes on any American in my first two years in office?"'

Some economists have endorsed spending up to $600 billion to revive the economy. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and former labor Secretary Robert Reich, a member of Mr. Obama's economic advisory board, both suggested $500 billion to $700 billion.

"I don't know what the number is going to be, but it's going to be a big number," Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said. "It has to be. The point is to, kind of, get people back on track and startle the thing into submission."

Axelrod and Schumer appeared on ABC's "This Week"; Hoyer and Boehner appeared on "Fox News Sunday"; Goolsbee appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation"; and Reich appeared on CNN's "Late Edition."