(Updates with comments from Sen. Reid)
By Patrick Yoest
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Monday amid talks on a stimulus package to spur the nation's ailing economy.
Obama said he expected "a sobering job report at the end of the week," but that he had enjoyed cooperation from Pelosi on putting together "an economic recovery and reinvestment plan to start putting people back to work."
"The people's business can't wait," Obama said. "We're expecting extraordinary economic challenges ahead of us."
While Congress is expected to take up several bills in the coming weeks in hopes of quick passage and enactment into law, neither Obama nor Pelosi would say if they expected an economic stimulus package to be ready for Obama's signature by the time of his inauguration in two weeks. But Pelosi told reporters that, when the inauguration occurs, "we hope to have signed into law legislation that will improve the lives of the American people."
"We will hit the ground running on initiatives," Pelosi said. Obama, speaking after a meeting with his economic team later Monday, said he expected to sign the stimulus "shortly after I get inaugurated."
"There are only so many days in the legislative process and it's going to take some time even on an expedited schedule to get a bill passed and on my desk, but we anticipate that by the end of January or the first week in February we have gotten the bulk of this done," the president-elect told reporters.
Obama and congressional Democrats are putting together a stimulus expected to contain hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending and reportedly $300 billion in tax cuts, but the exact total of the stimulus has yet to be determined.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday that "we have not received, of course, the exact package" from Obama, but that Obama has indicated that nearly all of the economists he has consulted with have said it should be within the range of $800 billion to $1.2 trillion or $1.3 trillion.
-By Patrick Yoest, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-3554; patrick.yoest@dowjones.com
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Publié le 05 janvier 2009 Copyright © 2009 Dowjones