PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA MAY REVERSE BUSH’S POLICIES WITH EXECUTIVE FIAT…PUSHES FOR $61BN STIMULUS PACKAGE

President-Elect, Barack Obama may reverse some of President George Bush’s policies with executive fiat.

Obama’s transition Chief, John Podesta, made this disclosure on Sunday. Some of the policies include stem cell research, and oil and gas drilling .

According to him “ He is expected to use those extraordinary powers to reverse Bush’s policies without waiting for Congress.”

Bush has limited federal spending on srem cell research , a position backed by opponents of abortion rights . Obama supported the research efforts to cure Alzheimers disease.

Obama also took over the Democrats' weekly radio address saturday to make a plea for swift economic action, as he spoke of the struggles facing 10 million Americans now unemployed.

"Their stories are an urgent reminder that we are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime, and we must act swiftly to resolve them," he said in his first radio address as president-elect.

Obama asked for unity between the two major parties on the subject of the economy, a day after urging the passage of a $61 million stimulus package opposed by Republicans.

"We can compete vigorously in elections and challenge each other's ideas, yet come together in service of a common purpose once the voting is done," he said.

Obama is to meet with President Bush tomorrow and is expected to discuss the possibility of a new stimulus measure, for which the president has shown little interest.

House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, passed the $61 billion stimulus plan in September, which was designed to create jobs through transportation and infrastructure projects.

Senate Republicans blocked the measure, which would also have funded social programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

Pelosi hopes the Senate will revisit and pass the plan during a lame-duck session called for Nov. 17.

The new stimulus measure, designed to help individuals, is separate from the $700 billion bank-rescue plan meant to relieve the credit crunch in the nation's financial system.

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That measure was passed and signed by Bush, although Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday asked that it be expanded to the struggling auto industry.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, they wrote: "A healthy automobile-manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial-market stability."

Pelosi believes the Obama election victory - combined with last week's news that 240,000 jobs were lost in October alone - makes it likelier that the new plan will be passed.

Despite the urgency of his address, the president-elect sent mixed signals.

After calling for the plan's passage, an aide told The Washington Post that Obama does not plan to attend the lame-duck session in his role as senator.

Obama has said the stimulus package should not wait until he is inaugurated on Jan. 20 but that if it does, he will act immediately. Some Dems thought it should be shelved until then, considering Bush's opposition.

"Clearly, there is no point in us doing something if the administration takes the position that they're not going to sign something," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told Politico.com.

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