Obama announces economic team; immediate task: stimulating economy

Today President-elect Barack Obama announced his new economic team:

As has been already known, Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, will be Secretary of the Treasury.

*Lawrence Summers --White House economic director, coordinating economic policy
*Peter Orszag --head of the Congressional Budget Office, will be charged with assembling the new president’s budget
"Chief Economist
Christina Romer, a University of California, Berkeley, professor, will head the Council of Economic Advisers."
"Melody Barnes will be domestic-policy council director, Obama said today." --Bloomberg News

* * *
National media outlets have emphasized the Obama administration's imminent economic stimulus program. Washington Post, datelined tomorrow, Tuesday, November 25:

In announcing the picks, Mr. Obama made it clear that his team's first job will be preparing an economic stimulus package of unspecified, but probably enormous, size. As he noted, this is now the consensus prescription of economists across the ideological spectrum, notwithstanding the fact that it could expand the federal deficit to well over $1 trillion. In fact, the whole point is to increase the deficit at a time when potential private-sector sources of economic life, whether consumers or businesses, are tapped out.

Perhaps as important as the plan's size is its timing and composition. No doubt the economy is in such bad shape that it could use what Mr. Obama called a "jolt" right away, under President Bush and the lame-duck Congress. But given the magnitude of federal borrowing Mr. Obama is likely about to seek, and the risk that funds allocated in haste could be inappropriately targeted, he is right to try to give his advisers until after the New Year to craft a program and get it to the Congress that will be sworn in Jan. 3. Alas, the recession will still be around, as it will be when the new president takes the oath of office Jan. 20. Better to take a few weeks to devise the best possible mix of tax breaks, infrastructure spending and energy investments than to rush out a suboptimal one.
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Mr. Obama wisely observed yesterday that budgetary "reform" must be part of the package, "so that we have a path towards a sustainable and responsible budget scenario down the line." We hope that what he has in mind goes beyond an attack on wasteful congressional "earmarks" and other pork-barrel spending. Important as those items are, Mr. Obama properly noted during the campaign that they constitute only a tiny portion of the federal deficit. The structural deficit, caused by uncontrolled entitlement spending, especially for Medicare, is the real menace. A credible blueprint for long-term entitlement reform would go a long way toward ensuring the viability of Mr. Obama's short-term anti-recession efforts, both politically and economically. The macroeconomic repairs Mr. Obama has in mind won't last unless he can also eventually put the federal government's finances back on a sound foundation.

Interpreting Obama's cabinet picks

Today's "New York Times" has a lead analysis piece, interpreting President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet choices as indicating a pragmatic, rather than ideological, direction: "Obama Tilts to Center, Inviting a Clash of Ideas".

I would say that this holds for some posts and not for other posts. In this tumultuous economic crisis period, he is inclined toward finance choices that are not lurching into new directions. His choice of New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner for Secretary of the Treasury is representative of these choices. (Note conservative commentator Larry Kudlow's gushing over Geithner over this choice. --"Lawrence" at his blog.)

And, yes, centrism and continuity is at work in Obama's choice of defense choices:

"[T]he names racing through the ether in Washington about the choices to follow also suggest that Mr. Obama continues to place a premium on deep experience. He is widely reported to be considering asking Mr. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, to stay on for a year; and he is thinking about Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander and Marine Corps commandant, for national security adviser."

Yet, as one blog noted, the appointment of Tom Daschle (former senator from South Dakota) has been over-shadowed by the all-but certain appointment of Senator Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to Secretary of Commerce, I would add. Obama's choosing Daschle for Secretary of Health and Human Services indicates an interest in a progressive, "change"-oriented (to use the slogan/tired cliche from the campaign) approach to the health care crisis.
Note Dashle's phrase "we can't afford not to" [cover everyone] below, quoted in a "Publisher's Weekly" review:

The U.S. is "the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee necessary health care to all of its citizens," and as former senator Daschle observes, "Skeptics say we can't afford to cover everyone; the truth is that we can't afford not to" because U.S. economic competitiveness is being impeded by the large uninsured population and fast-rising health costs. Daschle's book delineates the weaknesses of previous attempts at national health coverage, outlines the complex economic factors and medical issues affecting coverage and sets forth plans for change. Daschle proposes creating a Federal Health Board, similar to the Federal Reserve System, whose structure, functions and enforcement capability would be "largely insulated from the politics and passion of the moment," in addition to a merging of employers' plans, Medicaid and Medicare with an expanded FEHBP (Federal Employee Health Benefits Program) that would cover everyone. "There is no more important issue facing our country," Daschle asserts, "than reform of our health-care system," and the book's "health-care horror stories" bring this immediacy home.