Obama Says Any Delay on Stimulus ‘Irresponsible’

President Barack Obama said rising U.S. unemployment shows the urgent need for government action on the economy and any delay of his stimulus plan in Congress would be “inexcusable and irresponsible.”

Obama used the jobs data and the announcement of a panel of outside advisers led by Paul Volcker to help chart a course out of the recession to prod Congress toward finishing legislation providing more than $800 billion in spending and tax cuts.

Voters “did not choose more of the same in November,” Obama said at the White House with former Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker and the other 15 members of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board behind him. “They sent us here to make change, on the expectation that we would act.”

Obama cited government figures showing the nation’s unemployment rate hit 7.6 percent in January, the highest since 1992. The U.S. has lost 3.6 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007, the biggest employment slump of any economic contraction in the postwar period.

The loss of jobs “is an unmitigated disaster,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. “The scary thing is that there is no end to the soaring jobless rate in sight,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

Congressional Debate

The stimulus plan has come under fire from Republicans in Congress who have criticized the amount of spending and the size of tax cuts in the plans passed by the House and being debated in the Senate. Some Democrats have also questioned the size of the plan. Senators may vote tonight, and Democratic leaders vow to get legislation to Obama’s desk by the end of next week after reconciling the House and Senate versions.

Unless the government acts, “we’ll continue to get devastating job reports like today’s, month after month, year after year,” the president said. “This is not some abstract debate. It is an urgent and growing crisis.”

Christina Romer, who heads the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the economy may begin a recovery in the second half of this year if the stimulus passes quickly.

“There’s a good chance that it’s going to do the trick, that we will see us turn around in the second half of this year and that we’ll be back on the path to growth before we get to 2010,” she said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Board Members

Obama tapped Volcker to lead the newly created advisory board, which includes former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson, UBS Americas Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Wolf, General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Service Employees International Union Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger.

Also on the board are David Swensen, chief investment officer at Yale University; Mark Gallogly, founder and managing partner of Centerbridge Partners LP; Penny Pritzker, chairman of Pritzker Realty Group; John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers; Jim Owens, chairman and CEO of Caterpillar Inc.; Monica C. Lozano, publisher and CEO of La Opinion, the largest Spanish- language newspaper in the U.S.; Charles Phillips, president of Oracle Corp.; Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL- CIO labor federation; Laura Tyson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley; and Harvard University Professor Martin Feldstein.

Volcker said he agreed that lawmakers must move swiftly.

“The figures this morning simply reinforce that,” Volcker said. “And I can’t imagine that the Congress won’t share this sense of urgency.”

Multiple Views

Obama said he has recruited a cross-section of experienced leaders, Republicans and Democrats, from veterans of government and private industry to labor union advocates. It’s modeled on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board created by the late former President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“I’m not interested in groupthink,” he said. “We want to ensure that our policies have the benefit of independent thought and vigorous debate.”

Several of the board’s members played a role in Obama’s campaign as donors and advisers, including Donaldson, Ferguson, Gallogly, Wolf, Burger and Tyson. Pritzker was the finance chairwoman of Obama’s campaign.

While the stimulus legislation is making its way through Congress, Obama plans to make an appeal for quick action directly to the public with events next week in Elkhart, Indiana, and Fort Myers, Florida.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the cities were chosen because they’ve been hit hard by the recession. In Elkhart, for example, the unemployment rate has risen over the past year to 15.3 percent from 4.7 percent.

Obama also plans to hold a televised news conference at 8 p.m. on Feb. 9 from the White House.

“This is another chance for the president to talk directly to the American people about what’s at stake,” Gibbs said.

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