First up: Tax cut for the middle

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama plans to push ahead with a middle-class tax cut soon after taking office, his choice for White House chief of staff said Sunday.

Rahm Emanuel also hinted that Obama would not postpone a tax increase for families earning more than $250,000 a year despite the deepening economic gloom. He said Obama’s proposals would reduce taxes for 95 percent of working Americans by an average of $1,000 each, resulting in “a net tax cut” for the overall economy.

“The middle class must be the focus of the economic strategy,” Emanuel said on ABC’s “This Week.” Over the past eight years, he noted, median household incomes have decreased, when adjusted for inflation, while the costs for essentials – including education, energy and health care – have soared.

Obama also is poised to move swiftly to reverse actions that President Bush took using executive authority, and his transition team is reviewing limits on stem cell research and the expansion of oil and gas drilling, among other issues, members of the team said Sunday.

Once the new administration takes over Jan. 20, Emanuel said, Obama would act quickly to expand health care coverage, revamp energy policy and make education more affordable. But just how boldly he will move in each area, given the nation’s ballooning budget deficit and worsening economic downturn, is something that transition officials are weighing.

Saying that Obama’s decisive election victory amounts to a mandate, many of the president-elect’s staunchest supporters, including labor leaders, are looking for strong, swift action on many of the sweeping proposals – including reforming health care and increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation – that he pushed on the campaign trail.

TO SPEND OR NOT TO SPEND?

But at the same time, Obama will be under pressure from fiscal conservatives and others to restrain spending, which could cause him to move slowly on his most ambitious plans.

Emanuel offered no clues on Obama’s thinking. But the congressman said broadening access to health care and implementing an economic stimulus plan are part of Obama’s overall goal of shifting federal policy to address the mounting economic concerns of working Americans.

The economic crisis “provides the opportunity, as the president-elect has said repeatedly, to do things that Americans have pushed off for years,” Emanuel said.

In the short term, Emanuel said, Congress should extend unemployment benefits and help states pay health care costs when it returns for a lame-duck session this month. He added that any economic stimulus package passed during the session should not be coupled with a free-trade agreement with Colombia.

“You don’t link those essential needs to some other trade deal,” he said.

Emanuel also suggested that Obama, who remains a member of the Senate, would not take part in negotiations over a stimulus plan. In the coming weeks, Emanuel said, Obama will focus on picking members of his Cabinet and White House staff and identifying his immediate presidential priorities.

Meanwhile, the federal Bureau of Land Management is poised to open about 360,000 acres of public land in Utah to oil- and gas-drilling, a plan that the Bush administration has argued would not harm the land. Environmentalists have opposed the idea, a sentiment echoed Sunday by John Podesta, a top transition leader in the Obama camp.

“I think across the board, on stem cell research, on a number of areas, you see the Bush administration even today moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country,” Podesta said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They want to have oil- and gas-drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah that they’re going to try to do right as they are walking out the door. I think that’s a mistake.”

WHITE HOUSE MEETING TODAY

Obama and his wife, Michelle, are scheduled to meet with President Bush today at the White House. White House officials said first lady Laura Bush is expected to show Michelle Obama around the White House residence, and Barack Obama is expected to discuss with the president some of the pressing issues that he will face once he takes office.

Michelle Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, is not interested in getting deeply involved in policy matters, although she plans to promote volunteerism and work to alleviate the plight of military spouses, Jarrett said.

Instead, Michelle Obama is focused on getting the couple’s two daughters, Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, settled in their new home, Jarrett said. Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, will also move to the White House with the new first family, she said.

The New York Times contributed to this report.