Smash hit

The total of $1.5 trillion does not include Mr Obama’s proposed economic stimulus plan, which could exceed $700 billion, that he wants to sign into law as soon as he takes office.

He made it clear yesterday that his job of governing the country had, in effect, already begun. “I was elected with the charge of getting this economy back in shape,” Mr Obama said.

He added that over the next two months he would put together an economic crisis plan that he would implement “starting day one, when I come into office”.

He suggested that US banking executives should forgo big bonuses, given the financial climate. “I think that if you are already worth tens of millions of dollars and you are having to lay off workers, the least you can do is say, ‘I’m willing to make some sacrifice as well’,” he said, in an ABC News interview.

— Barack Obama has been told he must give up his BlackBerry on Inauguration Day, when he is brought under the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence on official records and ultimately up for public review (Catherine Philp writes). Will he be able to let go?

In an interview with Barbara Walters last night, he joked that he was “still negotiating” the issue with the Secret Service and White House staff. “One of the things that I’m going to have to work through is how to break through the isolation, the bubble that exists around the president,” he said.

The bloggers' view

“Is it true he is going to allow Bush’s tax cuts to continue until 2011? We voted for change, not to govern with the same old cronies”

(Nan2008, HuffingtonPost.com)

“How can economists who supported deregulation of the markets provide the answer to regaining our economic viability?”

(Elderly, HuffingtonPost.com)

“Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, Jim Jones, and Robert Gates — that is, overall, a centre-right foreign policy team. All of them, with the possible exception of Jones, supported the Iraq war from the outset”

(Chris Bowers, openleft.com)

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