Reports: Obama Stimulus Plan in "$500-Billion Range"

ABC News' George Stephanopoulous reports that President-elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan will be huge: Obama is "considering a stimulus package in the $500-billion range, which is 3 to 4 percent of GDP. That's a far larger stimulus package than the $175-billion Obama proposed on the campaign trail. Or the $300-billion stimulus which had been discussed as the upper limit."

Yesterday, Obama's advisers took to the Sunday morning news circuit: Senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee accused the Bush administration of "dithering" on the economy while it soured, "We're out with the dithering, we're in with a bang." And Senator Charles Schumer, who thinks the stimulus package should be $500-700 billion, said Congress will get a stimulus package to Obama before January 20.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama will also "try to calm Wall Street about trying to rewrite the rules of existing aid to Wall Street, and excessive spending in his new administration." And Obama may not immediately repeal the tax cuts to the wealthiest and may instead let them run out in 2011, as scheduled.

Obama will announce his economic team today; analysts tell CNBC, "they'll have to walk a fine line between saying too much and saying too little."

Photograph of Obama leaving the University of Chicago Lab School after playing basketball by Charles Dharapak/AP

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By Jen Chung in News on November 24, 2008 10:47 AM

Comments [rss]

NannyState

$40-50 trillion in potential trouble and he's tossing more trinkets at the big angry beast. Citigroup alone is a $400 billion play. I don't think these guys get it.

Shinobi Shaw

Guess what, this is coming straight out of the taxpayer (or lended by foreign powers). Making the National debt even higher then it is, this stimuli won't help what's coming.

Alex

Can't wait for all the fanboys to come to terms with the fact that their savior will amount to more of the same.

What are you saying here? How is an economic stimulus plan (think a program like the new deal) a bad idea? The economy needs growth, and what the government needs to do is stimulate it. Think the WPA or CCC in the 30s. A good way to produce growth is to fund construction projects like the MTA needs funds for.

juggler314

As a member of what he refers to as solidly in the middle class it would be nice to actually get a part of the stimulus. I know i make more than the average taxpayer, but still it pains me to see perhaps 500b or more of my tax dollars go out and to look at the fine print and see that it's limited to people under my income level - all the while being told that I'm solidly in the middle class that I'm supposed to be part of.

optimist

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a louse fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years."

--Alexander Tyler, (a book written in 1770, Cycle of Democracy)

r1b2

What the hell is he wearing? He looks like some retiree in Boca.

Duffy

Agreed on the MTA front. That should be a top priority in this city. Likewise, public transport investment should be a top priority for the country. Good jobs. Green minded. Helps pretty much everyone.