Absent Obama is front-and-center in the capital

"That was proposed in mid-October," a senior Obama adviser said of the president-elect's plan. "We'll look at it in mid-January and see where the economy is." The adviser spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal policy thinking publicly.

Congressional leaders are making it clear that any massive recovery plan will have to wait until next year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in letter to Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Friday, indicated the Senate's work this coming week will be limited to proposals to increase unemployment benefits and to the more complicated task of rescuing Detroit's automakers with a $25 billion emergency loan.

In an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" that will air Sunday, Obama said his transition team is monitoring how the Treasury Department is distributing the first share of a $700 billion rescue package for Wall Street. "We are getting the information that's required and we're making suggestions in some circumstances about how we think they might approach some of these problems," Obama said. Asked if administration officials were listening, Obama said: "We'll find out."

On the global front, Obama has acknowledged the need for a coordinated international response to the crisis. And he did spell out his economic proposals during the campaign. What's more, he and his aides have been in constant communication with leaders in the Democratic-controlled Congress. And he sent former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat, and former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, a Republican, as his envoys to the economic summit.

"The president-elect believes that the G-20 summit of leaders from the world's largest economies is an important opportunity to seek a coordinated response to the global financial crisis," Albright and Leach said in a joint statement issued late Saturday. "There is one president at a time, so the president-elect asked us to represent him in receiving the views of these important partners. We also conveyed President-elect Obama's determination to continuing to work together on these challenges after he takes office in January."

Obama administration faults Senate bank bill The Obama administration on Friday pushed back against a proposal in the U.S. Senate to create a single bank super-regulator and strip the Federal Reserve of its supervisory powers. Warren Buffett: Financial panic is over Pay czar concerned firms could lose talent U.S. banks to prepay $45 billion to FDIC Geithner encouraged by policies in Asia

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday said he was looking forward to working with Obama. "People see Barack Obama as reaching out to the rest of the world, and that's important," he said.

Bush on Saturday wryly acknowledged that many at the summit might have had their eyes trained on the change of administrations.

"Some of you may not have heard yet, but I am retiring," Bush said at the close of the summit Saturday. "But I told the leaders this: that President-elect Obama's transition team has been fully briefed on what we intended to do here at this meeting."

He added: "I hope it was good for them to hear that even though we're from different political parties, that I believe it's in our country's interest that he succeed."

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