Every day this week, President-elect Barack Obama has introduced new members of his economic team. Today it was Paul Volcker and Austan Goolsbee, who will lead the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Asked if the flurry of public activity was a response to the current Administration’s handling of the current crisis, President-elect Obama said that his focus on the economy was about something much broader.
“No, I think what it speaks to is the frustration of eight years in which middle class wages have gone down, or in real terms their family incomes have been reduced,” he said. “It expresses frustration about our inability to tackle some of the long term problems that we’ve been facing and have been talking about for decades, whether it’s health care, energy, an education system that’s been slipping behind in critical areas like math or science. And most of all, I think frustration with the incapacity of Washington to take bold, clear, decisive steps to deal with our economic problems.”
For years President-elect Obama has fought not only for an overhaul of the regulations that govern Wall Street — as his economic agenda states, “Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that our deep systemic financial market crisis requires a systemic response” — but for bold action in nearly every area of public policy.
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One of Obama’s greatest challenges is to create a new country and a new economy based on sustainable principles, while at the same time listening to sage wisdom formulated by decades of prior experience.
We don’t want to be pulled into the past, yet we want this new foundation to be build upon sound economic practices.
One of Obama’s greatest challenges is to create a new country and a new economy based on sustainable principles, while at the same time listening to sage wisdom formulated by decades of prior experience.
We don’t want to be pulled into the past, yet we want this new foundation to be build upon sound economic practices.