Obama ups jobs promise to nearly three million

With the economic picture blackening, President-elect Barack Obama set a new goal this week of creating or saving 3 million jobs over the next two years, up from 2.5 million just a month ago, Democratic officials said Saturday.

The new plan adds to the ambition and the complexity of Obama's opening agenda for Congress, with advisers saying they plan to ask for an economic stimulus package of $675 billion or more.

During the campaign, Obama had promised 1 million new jobs over an unspecified time. He bolstered that to 2.5 million over two years in his radio address just before Thanksgiving.

The president-elect decided to increase the size of his Economic Recovery Plan again after a meeting Tuesday in Chicago with his economic team. The meeting opened with Christina Romer, who will chair his Council of Economic Advisers, presenting updated economic forecasts, which have worsened since Obama's team originally formulated his plan.

After that meeting, the president-elect decided his jobs package should be larger.

The unemployment rate was 6.7 percent last month, the highest in 15 years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg said it could be 8.2 percent by the end of next year. And other forecasts have said it could be 10 percent by the middle of 2010.

Obama advisers believe it would be a real victory to keep the rate under 9 percent.

The biggest component of Obama's package is infrastructure spending, which the transition calls "building for the future" - road and bridge improvements, "green jobs" to increase energy efficiency, and investments in health-care information technology.

The other two big parts are tax cuts and state fiscal relief. Obama has not spelled those out. But during his campaign, he promised to cut taxes for 95 percent of workers and their families with a tax cut of $500 for workers or $1,000 for working couples. And Democrats support further relief from the alternative minimum tax, which was aimed at the rich but now is squeezing the upper middle class. State fiscal relief could include increasing the percentage of federal matching funds for Medicaid.

Obama transition officials has been consulting Capitol Hill about the stimulus package since Wednesday. The president-elect's aides are contemplating a package of $675 billion to $775 billion over two years, and have acknowledged it could grow to $850 billion in the legislative process. While huge at a time when the nation is running a record budget deficit, that is still slightly more conservative than the $1 trillion advocated by some economists.

The Obama team wants lawmakers to start working on the stimulus package when the new Congress convenes at the beginning of January, and want it to be ready for Obama to sign as soon after his Jan. 20 inauguration as possible.

But Obama does not expect the bill to be ready when he is sworn in. Although the House could pass the package quickly, it is likely to take considerably longer in the Senate.

Obama transition officials held an all-day series of meeting Friday in the basement of the Capitol with a large number of House and Senate staffers where they discussed specific areas of the recovery plan, such as energy and education.

The increase in Obama's jobs goal was first reported Saturday afternoon by Jackie Calmes of The New York Times.

Obama said earlier this month that the infrastructure part of his plan has five keys: making public buildings more energy-efficient; creating millions of jobs by investing in roads and bridges; modernizing and upgrade school buildings; expanding access to high-speed Internet; and making progress toward access to electronic medical records for all Americans.

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