In a meeting with his top economic advisors, Jan. 6th, President-elect Barack Obama pledged to ban earmarks from his economic recovery package and to establish an oversight group to ensure the money would be spent wisely.

The Obama Transition Team estimated that the economic stimulus package could create as many as 3 million jobs.

Voters sought two basic things in November in terms of the economy, Obama said. 'They were demanding change – change in policies that helped deliver the worst economic crisis that we've seen since the Great Depression. But they were also looking for a change in the way Washington does business.'

Earmarks are a process by which members of Congress are able to insert spending for projects that they favor without legislative oversight or public scrutiny.

Information about spending projects in the economic recovery bill will be made public online, Obama added. He pledged to make the entire budget process transparent as well, in order to 'address the deficit of dollars and the deficit of trust.'

Obama said that his economic team has estimated that his administration will inherit $1 trillion deficits from the Bush years that may last well into his first term.

To combat these deficits, economic recovery must be swift, spending brought under control, and measures taken to ensure that investments in job creation and the economic stimulus package are 'made wisely and managed well.'

'We'll have to make tough choices and we're going to have to break old habits,' he noted.

Over the weekend, in addition to over $400 billion in public infrastructure investments, Obama also announced that his economic stimulus package would include between $250 and $300 billion in tax cuts, mostly for workers but also for businesses too create jobs. During the campaign, Obama pledged a tax cut for 95 percent of working families.

In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, Jan. 4th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hinted that the tax cut would be included in the final bill. He added that a moratorium on home foreclosures and a reexamination of the Wall Street bailout might also be part of the package. The bill would likely include aid to states to shore up their own budget shortfalls and boost benefits for unemployed workers.

A post at the AFL-CIO's blog this week, praised Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress for the basic features of the economic recovery package and denounced Republican leaders for 'slowing action.'

Some supporters of Obama have been critical of the tax cuts portion of the recovery package. As economist Paul Krugman stated on his blog recently, tax cuts are less effective in revitalizing an economy than public investments because 'if the government spends money, that money is spent, helping support demand, whereas tax cuts may be largely saved' and because 'public investment leaves something of value behind when the stimulus is over.'

Noted Krugman, politicians tend to meet giveaways like tax cuts 'with fewer objections than plans for public investment.' This poses a political conundrum. While Obama might be able to steamroll an economic recovery package through Congress without Republican support, the likely delay of an economy stimulus package for months would be a 'nightmare scenario,' as Krugman put it. Further, it runs counter to Obama's pledge to build broad support for his legislative agenda.

See video of Obama's meeting with economic advisors, Jan. 6th here: