WASHINGTON President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday the recession could “linger during the time that antidote to years” if not Congress pumps unprecedented sums from Washington into the economy, making his highest-profile case yet on an issue certain to declare the properties of and dominate his early presidency.

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“I don’t give credit to it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible,” Obama said in a speech set to be delivered at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., outside Washington. Excerpts from his prepared text were released in advance by his transition team.

It was the fourth day in a row that Obama has made a pitch for a huge infusion of taxpayer dollars to revive the sinking frugality he will inherit from President George W. Bush.

Obama’s events have increasingly taken on the caparisons and air of the presidency, through the speech - coming a full 12 days before he takes over at the White House - a particularly showy actuate. Presidents-elect typically stick to naming administration appointments and otherwise staying in the background during the transition period between Election Day and Inauguration Day, but Obama has clearly made the foresight that a nation restless about its relating to housekeeping view and eager to bid farewell to Bush needs to hear from him differently and more frequently.

“A wretched situation could grow dramatically worse,” Obama said, painting a dire picture - including double-digit unemployment and $1 trillion in lost economic activity - that recalled the days of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Indeed, the economic news is grisly.

Consumers and companies are folding under the negative forces of a collapsed housing market, a global credit crunch and the worst pecuniary crisis since the 1930s. The recession, what one. started in December 2007, before that time is the longest in a quarter-century.

A report that came out the same generation as Obama’sitting speech showed that the digit of people continuing to engage jobless benefits unexpectedly rose sharply to the highest level seeing that November 1982, demonstrating the troubles the unemployed are having in finding new jobs.

And unemployment figures due out Friday are expected to simulation that the U.S. lost a trap total of 500,000 jobs in December. If accurate, that would bring 2008’s total job losses to 2.4 million, the first annals piece of work loss since 2001 and the highest since 1945, though the number of jobs has more than tripled since then.

Speaking a day subsequent the release of a wonderful new estimate - that the federal budget deficit will reach any unprecedented $1.2 trillion this year, nearly three times last year’sitting record - Obama acknowledged some sympathy through those who “might hold existence skeptical” of the goad. Vast sums already have been spent or committed by Washington in an attempt - largely unsuccessful so to a great distance - to get credit, the lifeblood of the American economy, flowing freely one time again.

Such statements are coded to appeal to budget hawks in both parties, whom Obama wants to win over so that approval of a package draws wide, bipartisan support in the Democratic-led Congress.

To answer their concerns, he promised to endure funding only for what works. He likewise pledged a new level of transparency about where the money is going. A twenty-four hours earlier, he promised to rigging the out-of-control fiscal problem posed by Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs and named a extraordinary watchdog to clamp down without interruption all federal programs.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008603586_apobamaeconomy.html?syndication=rss