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President-elect Barack Obama 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, Obama also
chose Lawrence Summers as director of his National Economic
Council. Summers was treasury secretary under former President Bill
Clinton.

      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.

      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.

      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."

      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 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 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
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, 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.

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

      House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio urged 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 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."

Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this story
from Washington.

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President-elect Barack Obama 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.


Obama names econ team, sees 'historic' crisis

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