WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Looking to secure the nascent economic recovery and shore up the battered U.S. labor market, President Barack Obama sought fresh ideas from a panel of outside advisers Monday, but warned that job losses are likely to continue in the weeks ahead.
"We are just not where we need to be yet. We've got a long way to go," Obama said at the start of a meeting of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He pointed at recent good news on the economy, but called the lag of job growth "most distressing."
Obama created the board shortly after his election last November as a way to avoid "groupthink" on economic issues and avoid the Washington "echo chamber." Monday's meeting, however, is just the second time the full group, which is led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, has met.
The session comes after recent evidence showed the U.S. recession has come to a close, with the economy expanding at a 3.5% clip in the third quarter. But the 9.8% unemployment rate - a quarter-century high - has raised doubts about the durability of the recovery. Some Congressional Democrats have called for new stimulus measures while Republicans complain that the $787 billion package passed earlier this year has failed.
Obama said there are "some excellent ideas already on the table," including potential tax cuts and credits. He didn't endorse specific new ideas in his opening remarks.
"The question is how are we going to make sure people are getting back to work and able to support their families? It's not going to happen over night," Obama said.
The administration said last week that the initial stimulus has directly created or saved nearly 650,000 jobs. When the indirect impact of tax cuts is included, the White House believes at least 1 million jobs have been created or saved so far.
Monday's meeting is being streamed live on the White House's Web site at http://www.whitehouse.gov/live.
In addition to Volcker, members of the advisory panel include General Electric Co. (GE) Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt; conservative Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein; former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson; TIAA-CREF President and CEO Roger Ferguson; UBS Group Americas CEO Robert Wolf; John Doerr, partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers; and Laura D'Andrea Tyson, dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.
Volcker also sits on an offshoot of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board that is due to report to Obama by Dec. 4 with options for reforming the tax code.
In a separate meeting later Monday, National Economic Council Director Larry Summers will sit down with a host of cabinet-level officials and others to consider ways to create jobs and sustainable economic growth. That session, which is closed to reporters, includes Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, White House climate czar Carol Browner, Budget Director Peter Orszag, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, among others.
- By Henry J. Pulizzi, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9256; henry.pulizzi@dowjones.com
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Publié le 02 novembre 2009 Copyright © 2009 Dowjones