Chicago, Nov.27 (ANI): US President-elect Barack Obama has defended
his decision to select people with an inside working knowledge of
Washington, especially those selected for his new economic team.

"I suspect the American people would be troubled if I selected a
treasury secretary or a chairman of an economic council at one of the
most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in
government whatsoever," Fox News quoted Obama as saying at a news
conference to announce former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker as
the head of his new economic advisory board.

"What we''re going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking.
We need people who will be able to hit the ground running," Obama added.

Volcker, 81, will head Obama''s Economic Recovery Advisory Board,
which will advise him on ways to create jobs and bring stability to the
ailing financial system. He is just one of many familiar names in
Washington whom Obama ias tapped to join the next administration.

The board''s top staff official will be Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist and longtime Obama adviser.

On Tuesday, Obama introduced Congressional Budget Office Director
Peter Orszag as his candidate to run the White House Office of
Management and Budget. The president-elect also pledged a
"page-by-page, line-by-line" budget review to root out unneeded
spending.

On Monday, Obama tapped New York Federal Reserve President Tim
Geithner to be his treasury secretary and named several other top
economic advisers.

With his economic team largely complete, Obama is expected to
introduce his national security officials, including Hillary Rodham
Clinton as his secretary of state, next week. Aides said Clinton has
not yet formally accepted Obama''s offer, but transition officials have
indicated that her nomination is on track.

Obama also is expected to announce that he has asked Defense
Secretary Robert Gates to remain at the Pentagon for a year and that
James Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander, will
be national security adviser. (ANI)