Obama aims to sign stimulus plan the day he takes office

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama will arrive in Washington Sunday and renew his push for a plan to rescue the struggling U.S. economy — including an estimated $600 billion to $800 billion stimulus package that a growing number of skeptical Republicans signal they may fight.

After a two-week vacation in his native Hawaii, Obama plans to meet Monday with the two top Democrats in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to discuss the stimulus bill, which Obama wants to sign on the day he takes office, Jan. 20, as his first official act as president.

In his weekly radio address to the nation, Obama will call Saturday for Republicans and Democrats to work together "with the urgency this moment demands" to pass a stimulus bill that reinvests in the nation and puts people back to work.

"Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double digit unemployment and the American Dream slipping further and further out of reach," Obama said in his taped remarks.

The nation, he adds, needs a plan that "not only creates jobs in the short term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long term. And this plan must be designed in a new way — we can't just fall into the old Washington habit of throwing money at the problem."

Obama will benefit from a bigger Democratic majority in both houses of the new Congress that convenes Tuesday, but leading GOP lawmakers declare they have had little say and warned Friday that they will use their power to sidetrack any stimulus bill until they are satisfied.

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in the Senate, said in a statement Friday that he agrees with Obama that jump-starting the economy "is job one." But he insisted that "every dollar needs to be spent wisely and not wasted in the rush to get it spent."

Citing Obama's promise to eliminate waste by scrutinizing the federal budget "line by line," McConnell said Republicans want to do the same thing to the stimulus bill, "page by page, line by line — eliminating those programs we don't need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way."

McConnell's House counterpart, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, said it is "essential that this legislation be debated in a fair, open and honest way." Congress, he said in a statement, should have public hearings, post any bill online, and must eliminate "special-interest earmarks."