Editor’s Note: There will be lighter posting than usual on ThinkProgress today because much of the team is traveling home for Thanksgiving.
The number of Americans on food stamps may exceed 30 million for the first time this month, putting a spotlight on hunger during a period of increasing unemployment and rising food prices. “Economists say an increase in food stamp benefits would help the economy overall by concentrating relief on those most likely to spend the money quickly.”
Later today, President-elect Barack Obama is excepted to name former Fed chairman Paul Volcker to lead a new White House panel aimed at reviving growth. Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, will be the top staff official on the Economic Recovery Advisory Board and will be a member of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Politico’s Ben Smith reports that labor leaders are dispirited by the fact that Obama’s secretary of labor was not introduced as part of his economic team. “I wish that [the secretary of labor] would have been among them,” former Michigan congressman David Bonior. “I hope they take that job seriously.”
Obama is calling on banking executives to forgo their bonuses this year. “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,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News that will air this evening.
Yesterday, the New York Post reported that right-wing pundit Ann Coulter reportedly “broke her jaw,” and her mouth “has been wired shut.”
As the Bush administration readies its ruling on whether the government should regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, it has sent an email to mayors around the country with a link to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce blog post that falsely warns that “a federal cap on greenhouse gases ‘will operate as a de facto moratorium on major construction and infrastructure projects.’”
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) stated yesterday that Obama’s cabinet picks have been “just about perfect.” “Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration,” he said.
And finally: Blackberry-addict Barack Obama refuses to let go. Contradicting recent reports that suggested Obama would have to surrender his Blackberry upon entering office, the President-elect told Barbara Walters in an interview that he’s trying to figure out a way to keep his lifeline to the outside world. “I’m negotiating to figure out how can I get information from outside of the 10 or 12 people who surround my office in the White House,” Obama said.
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