WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama and Congress tackled the troubled economy on Wednesday, weighing tactics for fixing the struggling financial industry and pushing ahead with a massive economic recovery package of new spending and tax cuts.
Obama, in his first full day in office, planned to meet with his White House economic advisers. On Capitol Hill, Timothy Geithner, Obama's nominee for secretary of the Treasury, told senators the country needs a "forceful course" to meet the economic crisis.
The president assumes office with access to the remaining half of a $700 billion financial bailout fund, and with Congress eager to get him a stimulus plan worth at least $825 billion within the next three weeks. In a sobering welcome to the president, stocks plunged Tuesday amid fears that governments would be forced to take over wobbly banks. Financial stocks rebounded Wednesday morning.
With a Congress that so far has acquiesced in his strategies, the combined rescue and stimulus tools would give Obama extraordinary resources to confront the recession.
A House committee was ready to put the final touches on much of the spending side of the stimulus plan, readying that portion of the bill so the House can consider the entire package next week. The House also planned a vote Wednesday afternoon on legislation setting goals and conditions for spending the financial rescue money, provisions that the Obama administration has already embraced.
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