President-elect Barack Obama Tuesday vowed to erase red ink and wasteful spending from the deficit-ridden US budget even while promising to do what it takes to revive stalled growth in the short run.
Obama acknowledged that his plans to inject billions of dollars in stimulus spending would drive the deficit still higher, but stressed the long-term benefits of investment in crumbling US infrastructure and health care systems.
Appointing Peter Orszag to head the White House Office of Management and Budget, he said the 39-year-old graduate of Princeton and the London School of Economics would ensure no "mountain of debt" is left for future generations.
Orszag, who is now the director of the Congressional Budget Office, "doesn't need a map to tell him where the bodies are buried in the federal budget," the president-elect told his second news conference in as many days.
Obama, who takes office on January 20, said he was not trampling on President George W. Bush's authority but insisted the economic emergency demanded that he present a clear sense of direction for the years ahead.
"We will go through our federal budget -- page by page, line by line -- eliminating those programs we don't need, and insisting that those that we do need operate in a sensible and cost-effective way," he said.
Obama also named Rob Nabors to serve as Orszag's deputy. Nabors is currently staff director of the powerful appropriations committee in the House of Representatives, and Obama said the pair were "outstanding public servants."
The appointments fleshed out Obama's economic team a day after he nominated New York central banker Timothy Geithner to be his Treasury secretary and named ex-Treasury chief Larry Summers as his top economic adviser.
Both Summers and Geithner cut their political teeth as senior members of president Bill Clinton's economic team, whose hallmark was deficit reduction.
The US government closed its books on the 2008 fiscal year September 30 with a record deficit of 455 billion dollars, and many analysts say the current fiscal year will end with a whopping gap of one trillion dollars.
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