Axelrod: Economic recovery
will take years
David Edwards and Jeremy Gantz
Published: Sunday January 18, 2009
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Axelrod_Economic_recovery_will_take_years_0118.html
President-elect Barack Obama's top aide told ABC's George
Stephanopoulos that it would take "not months, but years" for the
U.S. economy to recover and that the new administration aims to
avoid double-digit unemployment.
"Any economist will tell you that even if we move rapidly, it takes
a little while for this to move through the system and to put the
brakes on what is the most serious economic downturn we've had in
many, many generations," White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod
said Sunday.
U.S. unemployment surged to a 16-year high of 7.2 percent as a
deepening recession pushed employers to shed a massive 524,000 jobs
in December, capping a yearly loss of 2.6 million, Raw Story reported January 9th.
Axelrod, a former Chicago Tribune reporter, told Stephanopoulos
that "we're trying to avoid...double-digit unemployment. We're
trying to take some measures that will create 3 million to 4
million jobs the next couple of years, to put -- to try and slow
down this plummeting employment."
The Obama administration, he said, would like to "invest" money to
strengthen the economy and expand service programs such as
Americorps.
But he said an economic turnaround would probably not happen this
year. "I think it's fair to say that it's going to take not months,
but years to turn this around," Axelrod said.
This video is from ABC's This Week, broadcast Jan. 18,
2009. A full transcript of the interview can be found here.