Jump-Starting the Obama Presidency

Taking control of economic policy, Obama has assembled a team charged with preventing a depression. Inside their race against time

Jon Lowenstein / NOOR for TIME

President Elect Barack Obama introduced four new members of his economic team, Timothy F. Geithner, Christina Romer, Lawrence Summers and Melody Barnes, at the Chicago Hilton Towers in downtown Chicago.

Forget for now the way Inauguration Days have unfolded in the past. Jan. 20, 2009, could turn out to be a very different kind of swearing in.

Sometime around noon that day, Barack Obama will stand before millions of people on the west front of the Capitol, put his hand on the Bible and promise to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Then after delivering his Inaugural Address, the 44th President may step inside the Capitol and sign the lead elements of a two-year, $1 trillion economic-stimulus package, the largest ever fiscal booster shot in peacetime. Never mind...

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