Obama Expands Job Growth Goals as Part of Broad Stimulus Proposal

GWEN IFILL:

We begin with a look at how the economic crisis has forced Mr. Obama to adjust his plans.

Judy Woodruff has that part of the story.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

Less than a month ago, president-elect Obama said he aimed to create 2.5 million jobs over two years. But amid warnings of further deterioration in the economy, he upped the ante this weekend, both in terms of the number of jobs and the spending programs to create them.

Lori Montgomery of The Washington Post wrote about these developments, and she joins me now.

Thanks for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

So, why did they up these numbers just a month after they put other numbers down?

LORI MONTGOMERY, The Washington Post:

Well, there was a meeting.

Obama had a meeting with his top economic advisers on Tuesday, where he got the latest economic report, primarily delivered from Christina Romer, who is going to be the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers.

And the news was, A, in the coming year, we could lose as many as 3.5 million jobs, and, B, the unemployment rate could exceed 9 percent. Now, that's higher than it's been since any time since 1983, in the recession of the early '80s. And previous projections had been more like 8 percent. So, this was pretty bad news.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

So, this scared them, jolted them?

LORI MONTGOMERY:

I don't know that it scared or jolted them, but it certainly was a continuation the darkening economic picture.

I think that, you know, the price of this thing has steadily grown since the campaign. If you remember, he was talking about $175 billion to stimulate the economy when he was running for president. And, since then, not only Obama, but lawmakers — Democratic lawmakers — have steadily increased this thing to $300 billion, then $500 billion. Now we're talking about nearly $800 billion.