Issue #1: The Economy

President-elect Obama did not make much news in his first post-election press conference on Friday or his first national radio address on Saturday. But he did establish that his administration's number one priority is fixing the economy. On Friday he said, "Now is a good time for us to set politics aside for awhile and think practically about what will actually work to move the economy forward."

During the transition period, the involvement of President-elect Obama and his administration will be carefully chosen as he noted "there is only one president at a time," but he intends to be prepared "to hit the ground running" upon his inauguration.

There will not be a rush to name a Treasury Secretary or other members of the cabinet. Obama said, "I want to move with all deliberate haste but I want to emphasize 'deliberate' as well as 'haste.' I'm proud of the choice I made of vice president partly because we did it right. I'm proud of the choice of chief of staff because we thought it through."

Obama has been meeting with his Transition Economy Advisory Board (which includes Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker) to discuss several of the most immediate concerns and, in his radio address, stated his priorities for the economy:

1) To produce a rescue plan for the middle class that "invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provide relief to families."
2) To address the spread of the financial crisis on other sectors of the economy and "ensure that the rescue plan that passed Congress is working to stabilize financial markets while protecting taxpayers and helping homeowners."
3) To prepare a "set of policies that grow our middle-class and strengthen our economy in the long run." These will include "clean energy, health care, education and tax relief for middle class families."