"Commentary"-What's Ahead For President-Elect Obama's Economics Team
Monday, December 01, 2008SUSIE GHARIB: Tonight's commentator says President-Elect Obama's new economic team is going to be busy. She's Alice Rivlin, senior fellow at Brookings and former vice chair of the Federal Reserve.
ALICE RIVLIN, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS: President-Elect Obama must have been marvelously persuasive to have recruited the outstanding economic team announced last week. Here's your first assignment, he must have said: get credit flowing to worthy borrowers, downsize the financial services industry to sustainable size, guarantee responsible financial behavior in the future without stifling innovation, get those dubious assets off balance sheets and then extricate the government from the banking and finance business lest someone think we are socialists. Do this without much cost to taxpayers, because they shouldn't have to pay for the sins of fat cats who made more in a day than they make in a year. Your second assignment is even more urgent: slow the free fall of the economy, get cash to people most hurt by rising unemployment, keep the states afloat and then create a few million jobs building things we really need. No bridges to nowhere, please. After that, take on the hard stuff. Shift the American economy from over consumption and excessive borrowing to solid saving and smart investing and convince our foreign creditors that we have become competent fiscal managers with a serious plan to control our exploding deficits and debt before they drown us. And, oh, yes, do it in a collegial bipartisan manner. OK, team-get started. I'm Alice Rivlin.
