President-elect Barack Obama vowed today to shed wasteful spending and reform the US federal budget to put the country’s economy back on track. The US Federal Reserve also announced it will provide another $800 billion in a bid to unfreeze the credit market and stabilise the financial system.
He said the US faced a "great challenge" and budget reform was not an option but an "imperative".
Mr Obama agreed there was only "one president at one time" but added that it was important for the American people to understand that his administration was prepared to "hit the ground running" when it takes over from George W. Bush on January 20th.
Holding his second press conference on the economic crisis in two days, Mr Obama said he was "confident that we will rise to meet this challenge".
"In these challenging times, when we are facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option. It is an imperative," he said.
"We cannot sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programmes that have outlived their usefulness, or exist solely because of the power of a politician, lobbyist, or interest group. We simply cannot afford it.
"This isn't about big government or small government. It's about building a smarter government that focuses on what works.
"That is why I will ask my team to think anew and act anew to meet our new challenges. We will go through our federal budget - page by page, line by line - eliminating those programmes we don't need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way."
The president-elect added he had chosen a team who would not need a map to tell them "where the bodies are buried in the federal budget".
"Just because a programme, a special interest tax break or corporate subsidy is tucked into this year's budget, does not mean it should survive the next," he said.
Mr Obama nominated Congressional Budget Office chief Peter Orszag today to be the director of the White House budget office.
Mr Obama also named Rob Nabors as the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, a statement from his office said.
Meanwhile, officials said today the US Federal Reserve will provide another $800 billion in a bid to unfreeze the credit market and stabilise the financial system. The stimulus package is a fresh lifeline to consumers and is in addition to the $700 billion rescue plan enacted by the US Congress last month - the largest US government bail-out in history.
The Federal Reserve, the US central bank, said up to $600 billion dollars would be used to buy up mortgage-backed securities while up to $ 200 billion would be aimed at unfreezing the consumer credit market.
AP