'Meet the Press' transcript for Jan. 11, 2009

MR. DAVID GREGORY:  Our issues this Sunday, the economy in free fall.  More than half a million jobs lost last month, making the yearly decline the worst in six decades and the unemployment rate now at its highest point in nearly 16 years.  The president-elect urges lawmakers to act fast.

(Videotape)

PRES.-ELECT BARACK OBAMA:  For every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  Can his plan prevent an economic depression?  When might Americans feel some relief?  And is there long-term danger as government spending and America's debt reach historic levels?  This morning, insights and analysis from a special economic roundtable.  With us:  economic adviser to President-elect Obama, former Congressman David Bonior of Michigan; editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, Paul Gigot; chief Washington correspondent for CNBC and New York Times political writer John Harwood; Vanity Fair contributing editor Bethany McLean; and chief economist of Moody's economy.com and author of "Financial Shock:  A 360 degree Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis," Mark Zandi.

Then, America inaugurates its first black president in just nine days.  We begin an in-depth look at leadership tests for the new president.  This morning, confronting the challenges in the African-American community.  As he inspires the country to break racial barriers, how can Obama help the black community solve some of its deepest problems, including inner city violence, unemployment, high incarceration and school dropout rates, as well as the need for parental responsibility?  Our guests:  Bill Cosby and Dr. Alvin Poussaint, two men who have written the best-selling book "Come On, People: On the Path from Victims to Victories." They've traveled the country delivering this message to black communities.

(Videotape)

MR. BILL COSBY:  I want you to go back to parenting.  You young men, when you get married and you have children, you've got to parent.  You've got to be parents.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  We'll also be joined in this important discussion by two strong political leaders on the front lines of this struggle:  the mayor of Washington, D.C., Adrian Fenty, and the congresswoman representing South Central Los Angeles, Maxine Waters.  But first, the economy and the president-elect's stimulus plan.

Welcome to all of you.

John Harwood, you sat down exclusively with the president-elect during a week when he did something unusual, and that was give a nationally televised address to say, "This is the help that I'm prescribing, and it's coming." What is in this stimulus plan?

MR. JOHN HARWOOD:  Well, he's got a couple hundred billion dollars for states and cities to try to keep them from laying off people, providing services that people need more of now that we're losing half a million jobs a month.  He's got a hundred billion dollars of infrastructure, try to spend on roads, bridges, electricity grid, green jobs, alternative energy spending.  He's got $300 billion worth of tax cuts, most of which he campaigned on, some of which he's added to try to lure Republicans to support this package on the Hill.

MR. GREGORY:  Mark Zandi, as an economist, what's your big question about it?

MR. MARK ZANDI:  Is it big enough?  Is $750 billion, a trillion dollars enough?  The economy is in great trouble.  We lost 500,000 jobs in December, 2.6 million jobs in 2008.  That's the most since 1945.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MR. ZANDI:  Unemployment's 7.2 percent.  So is 750 billion, a trillion going to be enough to jump-start the economy, to get the private sector back in the game?

MR. GREGORY:  Congressman, is that--that's a pretty amazing statement that we're talking about something, at least $775 billion, and the big question about is is it big enough for this economy?

FMR. REP. DAVID BONIOR (D-MI):  Well, it's a big economy.  And to infuse the dollars that you need to move us out of this recession is going to require quite a bit.  This may be the first tranche of a series of measures that are going to be needed to move us forward.  But I think the--a big question that we have to face here is not just the size of this package, and the fiscal package and the monetary package, but what do we want to recover, too?

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

REP. BONIOR:  What do we want to--do we want to go back to what we had, which was a pyramid that really was imbalanced because of the inequality of income at the top?

MR. GREGORY:  And that--I think that's such an important point.  I want to get to that.

REP. BONIOR:  OK.

MR. GREGORY:  You know, the future of the economy.

Let's talk about the timeline and some of what's projected here.  The Obama team put out an economic report in which they said this.  This is The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, which is what they're calling it:  "A package in the range that the president-elect has discussed is expected to create between three and four million jobs by the end of 2010." That's fourth quarter, Bethany, of 2010.  And this is what the president-elect said during your interview, John, with him during the week about timeline. Let's, let's watch that.

(Videotape, Wednesday)

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA:  But understand that the best estimates we're getting right now is even with the massive effort that we're going to make, we are still looking at the prospect of unemployment at a fairly high level.  It just won't be the double-digit levels that we might see if we took no action whatsoever. And it may take most of next year before we start seeing the economy growing again in the ways that it should.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  What's your big question about the stimulus plan?

MS. BETHANY McLEAN:  Will it work, and how do we pay it back?  We've gone from a few years ago the conventional wisdom was the economy's just--going to be just fine, housing isn't a problem.  A couple of years ago it was the subprime problem is contained, this is only an issue of bad mortgages.  Now the conventional wisdom is let's spend our way out of it.  So as someone who's always a little bit terrified by the conventional wisdom, I'm terrified by that large question:  How do we pay it back?  What happens if it doesn't work?

MR. GREGORY:  Paul, let's focus on the timeline here.  It is striking if we're not really going to have sizable job creation or kind of a ending job loss until fourth quarter 2010, it's January 2009, there's a lot more misery to come here.

MR. PAUL GIGOT:  Sure.  Sure.

MR. GREGORY:  And even that, is that a realistic timeline?

MR. GIGOT:  Well, I, I, I--who knows?  I mean, if, if, if you were an investor and, and you knew that, you, you'd make, you know, billions of dollars.

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