Obama Increases Jobs Goal Upon Receiving More Bad Economy News

The word President-Elect Barack Obama just got: the bad, terrible economy is even worse than you were told. His solution: aim to create a half-million more jobs than he planned and urge his advisers to really start thinking outside of the normal economic policy box.

The news gets worse and worse — and it partially explains why after floating the idea of bankruptcy for the big three Detroit carmakers President George Bush one day later pulled back like a vampire being confronted with a crucifix to the idea and decided to bailout the automakers:

President-elect Barack Obama has decided to increase his goal for creating new jobs after receiving economic forecasts that suggest the economy is in worse shape than had been predicted, two Democratic officials told CNN.

The officials said Obama is increasing his goal from 2.5 million to 3 million jobs over the next two years after receiving projections early this week that suggest the recession will be deeper than expected.

It’s increasingly sounding like after months of officials refusing to use the “R” word, the “D” word may be whispered in 2009. So Obama is getting ready to hit the ground running amid a mounting array of negative financial news:

The projections showed that unless significant action is taken, the nation is likely to lose up to 4 million jobs over the next year and that the unemployment rate will probably rise above 9 percent, a transition aide told CNN.

After hearing the projections, Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden “argued that we were being too timid and that we needed to develop a plan that would save or create at least 3 million jobs,” the aide said.

One of the officials said Obama challenged his economic team to “think bolder” as some economists warn there is danger in the government doing too little to curb the recession.

They said the stimulus plan in the works in the Obama camp would have “oversight and transparency measures” to ensure spending on the plan would be focused on stimulating the economy and not devolve into just handing out congressional pork projects.

The big questions:

1. Can the new Democratic Congress get the plan ready for him to sign ASAP?

2. If there is resistance from the GOP minority, are Democratic leaders smart enough to short-circuit it so the new administration gets a chance to put policies it feels are crucial in place?