Obama to include accountability in economic plan
By CHARLES BABINGTON and LIZ SIDOTI – 56 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to bar lawmakers' pet projects from his massive economic stimulus plan and to bring unprecedented accountability to federal spending.

Even as he promised to fight waste and to make tough budgetary decisions, however, Obama warned that the nation could face trillion-dollar deficits for years go come. Eight years ago the federal budget ran a surplus, and the deficit on Sept. 30 was about $455 billion.

Two weeks before taking office, Obama said Americans will accept his proposed stimulus plan — expected to cost about $775 billion — only if they believe the money is being used wisely to boost the troubled economy and to make smart long-term investments in public projects.

He told reporters at his transition office that his package will set a "new higher standard of accountability, transparency and oversight. We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert projects without review."

Details of the plan, which has yet to be drafted as a bill, will be available online, Obama said, "so the American people will know where their precious tax dollars are going and whether we are hitting our marks." He promised to make difficult choices and to "eliminate outmoded programs and make the ones we do need work better." He did not specify which programs might be trimmed or eliminated.

It is too bad you are not in Washington sharing your expertise with the other economists, including a Nobel Laurate who say that this is the worst crisis since the Great Depression and getting worse.
Which war should Clinton have begun? You don't mean invade Baghdad do you? After all, shrub's Daddy and Cheney both laid out why THEY did not invade Baghdad and depose Saddam.
You know what? They were pretty good forecasters. Too bad Cheney got greedy and wanted a way to make a lot of money for Halliburton and shrub doesn't read books.

I will be buying stocks this year as well. That does not mean that the economy is not in deep trouble. There isn't any responsible, knowledgeable individual who thinks this will pass without the government getting involved.
Even your president asked for a bailout for the financial folks and agreed to a loan for the car companies.

You'll forgive me if I take the advice of scholars and economists over yours? Your profile is a little thin. What do you do or who do you know that gives you all this insight that no one else has?