Change.gov - The Official Web Site of the The U.S. Presidential Transition

President-elect Obama met with the Senate Democratic caucus today on Capitol Hill.

See pictures from the event below.

Over the past few weeks, thousands of people in all fifty states have volunteered to participate in health care discussions in their communities. They invited their friends, neighbors and co-workers and met in cafes, living rooms and schools. You can see some of the photos they sent us here:

We asked these grassroots groups to report back to us, and our health care team is currently reviewing their ideas and proposed solutions.

Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle -- who has also been asked to become the Director of the White House Office of Health Reform -- was able to travel to two of the discussions over the holidays.

His first stop was hosted by the local fire department in Dublin, Indiana, a town of approximately 700 people. The next day he dropped in on a meeting at a wellness center in Southeast Washington, DC.

Watch Sen. Daschle's journey in the video below, and let us know if you've had similar discussions in your own communities.

Continuing a long-standing tradition between the leaders of the two nations, President-elect Obama met today with Mexican President Felipe Calderón to discuss some of the major issues that will be the cornerstone of U.S.-Mexico relations during the coming Administration.

According to incoming Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, President-elect Obama "expressed his commitment to advance cooperation on a range of issues, including security, the economy and immigration."

The two leaders met at the Mexican Cultural Institute for lunch, and later visited the José Clemente Orozco Gallery in Washington D.C.

See pictures of the meeting below.

In both rounds of “Open for Questions” that we’ve hosted here, there’s been a dominant theme in questions about the economy. In the first round Diane from New Jersey had one of the most popular questions overall, asking, “What will you do to establish transparency and safeguards against waste with the rest of the Wall Street bailout money?” One of the top questions in second round came from Dorothy in Tucson, Arizona, who asked, “I’m concerned about the banks who received tax payers money and have had no accountability. Will this be corrected after President-elect Obama is in office?”

Today Lawrence Summers, Director-designate of the National Economic Council, addressed these widespread concerns from both the public and Congress in a letter (pdf) to bipartisan Congressional Leaders. As President-elect Obama requests that the second half of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds be released, Summers gave assurances that there would be sweeping changes in the use and accountability of those funds going forward:

“[T]he President-elect also shares the frustration of the American people that we have seen too little effect from this rescue plan on jobs, incomes, and the ability of responsible homeowners to stay in their homes. He believes the American people are right to be angry with the way this plan has been implemented. President-elect Obama believes there has been too little transparency and accountability; too much upside for financial institutions and executives who acted irresponsibly without providing enough help for small business owners, families who are struggling to keep their jobs and make ends meet, and innocent homeowners.

“That will change when President-elect Obama takes office.”

The letter goes on list five specific pledges from President-elect Obama.

1) To use “Our Full Arsenal of Tools” to make sure credit gets flowing not just financial institutions but to “small businesses, auto purchasers, and municipalities.”

2) To reform oversight both of the TARP and our financial system at large, including “a full and accurate accounting of how the Treasury Department has allocated the funds spent to date and going forward.”

3) To “Launch a Sweeping Effort to Address the Foreclosure Crisis,” reducing the number of preventable foreclosures “by helping to reduce mortgage payments for economically stressed but responsible homeowners while also reforming our bankruptcy laws and strengthening existing housing initiatives like Hope for Homeowners.”

4) To impose new “tough and transparent conditions” on firms getting taxpayer money to ensure that the money is being used to get credit flowing and bolster the economy, not for personal profit.

5) To increase the role of private capital, and “invest taxpayer money only when sufficient private capital cannot be attracted.”

Summers closes the letter emphasizing the need to work together to get through this “economic storm,” and reiterates the call for urgency: “President-elect Obama believes it is not too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible.”

One of the goals of this Transition has been to engage Americans in the political process while promoting citizenship online.

Our Open Government initiatives have showcased the powerful role that everyday Americans will play in the coming Administration. They've been part of a powerful dialogue that will be sustained over the months and years to come.

This is an ongoing process. Now, with the transition into the White House days away, we're calling on the Change.gov community to be part of our final project.

Your ideas and your words will be compiled into a Citizen's Briefing Book and delivered to President Obama after he takes office.

The Citizen's Briefing Book feature includes robust tools that let you explore a wide variety of submissions intuitively. By rating and commenting on the ideas on the page, your feedback will shape the final content of the Briefing Book. It's a democratic way to highlight the issues that are the most important to this community and relay their importance directly to the White House.

We hope you'll take the opportunity to leave your mark on the Citizen's Briefing Book here.

Last Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama gave a major speech outlining his American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.

We asked some of the leading members of the Transition's policy teams to sit down and talk a bit about it -- why it's necessary, how it will work, and how we'll make sure it's as efficient and effective as it is bold.

We compiled their responses into a short video, touching on each of the major elements of the plan.

Watch the video now, and discuss it below:

Christina Romer, the Chair-designate for the Council of Economic Advisers, discusses a new report about what kinds of jobs and which types of workers will benefit from the proposed American Recovery Act.

Learn more about the three to four million new jobs that could be created by reading the report written by Romer and Jared Bernstein, the chief economist for the Office of the Vice President-elect. And watch the interview with Romer here:

The high unemployment numbers released this week rattled the country, as anxiety about the deepening recession hit home to more and more American families.

President-elect Obama's Weekly Address responds with an urgent call for immediate and dramatic action to get our economy working again.

The President-elect's proposed plan won't just create jobs -- it will also provide help for those who have lost theirs with bi-partisan measures to families and states hit hardest by this recession.

Two members of the Transition economic team -- Dr. Christina Romer and Dr. Jared Bernstein -- have analyzed the plan and project that it will likely save or create three to four million jobs. Their report is here.

Watch the President-elect's weekly address and read the full text below.

We start this new year in the midst of an economic crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime.  We learned yesterday that in the past month alone, we lost more than half a million jobs – a total of nearly 2.6 million in the year 2008.  Another 3.4 million Americans who want and need full-time work have had to settle for part-time jobs.  And families across America are feeling the pinch as they watch debts mount, bills pile up and savings disappear.

These numbers are a stark reminder that we simply cannot continue on our current path.  If nothing is done, economists from across the spectrum tell us that this recession could linger for years and the unemployment rate could reach double digits – and they warn that our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world.

It’s not too late to change course – but only if we take immediate and dramatic action.  Our first job is to put people back to work and get our economy working again.  This is an extraordinary challenge, which is why I’ve taken the extraordinary step of working – even before I take office – with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will call for major investments to revive our economy, create jobs, and lay a solid foundation for future growth.

I asked my nominee for Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Dr. Christina Romer, and the Vice President-Elect’s Chief Economic Adviser, Dr. Jared Bernstein, to conduct a rigorous analysis of this plan and come up with projections of how many jobs it will create – and what kind of jobs they will be.  Today, I am releasing a report of their findings so that the American people can see exactly what this plan will mean for their families, their communities, and our economy.

The report confirms that our plan will likely save or create three to four million jobs.  90 percent of these jobs will be created in the private sector – the remaining 10 percent are mainly public sector jobs we save, like the teachers, police officers, firefighters and others who provide vital services in our communities.

The jobs we create will be in businesses large and small across a wide range of industries.  And they’ll be the kind of jobs that don’t just put people to work in the short term, but position our economy to lead the world in the long-term.

We’ll create nearly half a million jobs by investing in clean energy – by committing to double the production of alternative energy in the next three years, and by modernizing more than 75% of federal buildings and improving the energy efficiency of two million American homes. These made-in-America jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, developing fuel-efficient cars and new energy technologies pay well, and they can’t be outsourced.

We’ll create hundreds of thousands of jobs by improving health care – transitioning to a nationwide system of computerized medical records that won’t just save money, but save lives by preventing deadly medical errors.  And we’ll create hundreds of thousands more jobs in education, equipping tens of thousands of schools with 21st century classrooms, labs and computers to help our kids compete with any worker in the world for any job.

We’ll put nearly 400,000 people to work by repairing our infrastructure – our crumbling roads, bridges and schools.  And we’ll build the new infrastructure we need to succeed in this new century, investing in science and technology, and laying down miles of new broadband l ines so that businesses across our nation can compete with their counterparts around the world. 

Finally, we won’t just create jobs, we’ll also provide help for those who’ve lost theirs, and for states and families who’ve been hardest-hit by this recession.  That means bi-partisan extensions of unemployment insurance and health care coverage; a $1,000 tax cut for 95 percent of working families; and assistance to help states avoid harmful budget cuts in essential services like police, fire, education and health care.

Now, given the magnitude of the challenges we face, none of this will come easy.  Recovery won’t happen overnight, and it’s likely that things will get worse before they get better.

But we have come through moments like this before.  We are the nation that has faced down war, depression and fear itself – each time, refusing to yield; each time, refusing to accept a lesser fate.  That is the spirit that has always sustained us – that belief that our destiny is not written for us, but by us; that our success is not a matter of chance, but of our own courage and determination.  Our resources may be finite, but our will is infinite.  And I am confident that if we come together and summon that great American spirit once again, we will meet the challenges of our time and write the next great chapter in our American story.

In a letter released yesterday, Transition Co-Chair John D. Podesta urged Congressional leaders to reconsider and extend the date by which consumers must outfit their television sets for digital broadcasting (DTV).

The mandated switch from analog to digital reception, originally scheduled for February 17th, 2009, has not been adequately funded, according to Mr. Podesta.

The letter notes that as many as 5 million Americans could lose their television reception if the deadline is not reconsidered.

"There is insufficient support for the problems consumers (particularly low income, rural and elderly Americans) will experience as a result of the analog signal cutoff," Podesta wrote.

Read the full letter here.

When we closed out the first round of Open for Questions with around 20,000 people participating, 10,000 questions submitted, and 1,000,000 votes on which we should answer, we were thrilled. But we were also concerned that the splash of unveiling this new tool meant that would be the high-water mark.

During this second round, we decided to leave the voting open significantly longer, but even with that extra time we were surprised to see the final totals: 103,512 people submitted 76,031 questions and cast 4,713,083 votes. We can now be confident that the success of the first round was not just about a new trick, but just a hint of the willingness of the public to permanently change the way they interact with their government. There’s plenty of room to grow.

For this round we refined the process to make it more user-friendly, and broke out the questions into categories. We think this made for a more interesting experience, and ensured that a broader array of questions could get exposure. But we also wanted to try a new way of responding to the questions, so this time instead of text answers, we asked incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to sit down with us. Since there were so many popular questions in so many categories, we tried to pull out some of them that had been addressed previously by the President-elect or Vice President-elect in order to focus the video portion on questions that haven’t been as specifically addressed during the Transition.

“Previously Addressed Questions”
These popular questions have been answered previously by top officials or in the prior edition of “Open for Questions.”

“Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?” -- Bob Fertik, New York City

Vice President-elect Biden, 12/21/08: “[T]he questions of whether or not a criminal act has been committed or a very, very, very bad judgment has been engaged in is -- is something the Justice Department decides. Barack Obama and I are -- President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We're focusing on the future… I'm not ruling [prosecution] in and not ruling it out. I just think we should look forward. I think we should be looking forward, not backwards.”

UPDATE: After these answers were posted, President-elect Obama was asked this question for the January 11th edition of ABC's "This Week," this was his response:

STEPHANOPOULOS: The most popular question on your own website is related to this. On change.gov it comes from Bob Fertik of New York City and he asks, "Will you appoint a special prosecutor ideally Patrick Fitzgerald to independently investigate the greatest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping."

OBAMA: We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you've got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don't want them to suddenly feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering [up].

“What will President Obama do to bring about an independent Palestinian state and bring an end to the violence in the West Bank and Gaza?” -- Katherine, Virginia

President-Elect Obama, 1/5/09: “I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign that starting at the beginning of the administration we are going to engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East. That is something that I am committed to -- I think it is not only right for the people in that region, most importantly it is right for the national security of the American people and the stability that is so important to this country. So on January 20th you will be hearing directly from me and my opinions on this issue. Until then my job is to monitor the situation and to put together the best possible national security team to hit the ground running once we are responsible for national security.”

“I'm concerned about the banks who received tax payers money and have had no accountability. Will this be corrected after President-elect Obama is in office?” --Dorothy, Tucson Az

Open for Questions Response, 12/15/08: “President-elect Barack Obama does not believe an economic crisis is an excuse for wasteful and unnecessary spending. As our economic team works with congressional leadership to put together a plan, we will put in place reforms to ensure that your money in invested well. We will also bring Americans back into government by amending executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public. In addition all appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies will be required to conduct the significant business of the agency in public so that every citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.”

“Will you consider legalizing cannabis/marijuana/hemp so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a multi-billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?” -- DJ C, Chicago, IL

Open for Questions Response, 12/15/08: “President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.”