By Dawn Kopecki
Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said Barack Obama represents ``a triumph of the American story'' and promised his ``complete cooperation'' in the handover of power.
``Ensuring that this transition is seamless is a top priority for the rest of my time in office,'' Bush said today in his weekly radio address. Bush, a Republican, ends his second term in office on Jan. 20, when Obama will be sworn in.
Obama, the first black elected president, will inherit the deepest U.S. recession since Ronald Reagan's second year in the White House, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tensions with Russia over U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Europe.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, plan to meet with Bush and first lady Laura Bush at the White House Nov. 10. In the coming weeks, administration officials will be asked to brief the Obama team on financial markets and the war in Iraq, Bush said.
``I will keep the president-elect fully informed of important decisions during this critical time for our nation,'' he said. Bush said he will also use his remaining time to approve free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea that have been stalled for months.
The state of the economy puts pressure on Obama to quickly assemble a response and name his economic team. U.S. payrolls plunged by more than half a million over the past two months, according to data released this week, and the unemployment rate jumped to 6.5 percent in October, the highest in 14 years.
``I want to ensure that we hit the ground running on Jan. 20 because we don't have a moment to lose,'' Obama, 47, said in the Democratic party's weekly radio address today.
Tax Cut
Obama repeated pledges to pursue a middle-class tax cut and other priorities he identified in the campaign to address the financial meltdown. He also said that the $700 billion rescue plan signed into law Oct. 3 needs to protect taxpayers, help homeowners without ``unduly rewarding the management of financial firms that are receiving government assistance.''
Some 3.8 million U.S. homes are under foreclosure, 1.2 million Americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits by the end of the year, and many states face revenue shortfalls, economists say.
Economists led by Jan Hatzius at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the economy will shrink at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter and at a 2 percent pace in the first quarter of 2009, nearly twice prior estimates. That would be the biggest back-to-back contraction since 1982.
Plunging Car Sales
The surge in unemployment reflected an economic cave-in last month, when car sales plunged 32 percent, manufacturing contracted the most in 26 years and consumer confidence fell to a record low. Obama yesterday called automobiles the ``backbone'' of U.S. manufacturing, indicating he supports government aid.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter today to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging him to use the $700 billion rescue bill passed last month to provide temporary aid to automakers.
Pelosi was among the lawmakers who met two days ago with the chief executives of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. The three companies are seeking $50 billion in federal loans to help them weather the worst auto market in 25 years, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Relations with Russia also pose a challenge to Obama. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this week declared that he would place short-range Iskander missiles and a radio-jamming installation near Poland to ``neutralize'' the planned U.S. missile-defense system. Russia has consistently objected to the system as a threat to its security, while the U.S. says it is intended to shield against missiles from Iran or North Korea.
Medvedev spoke to Obama today and congratulated him on his ``clear'' victory in the Nov. 4 presidential election, according to an e-mailed statement from the Kremlin. The two leaders agreed to organize a meeting in the ``near term,'' the statement said.
To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net
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