Obama and Senate Dems Prepping for Quick, Massive Stimulus Package

A high-ranking official in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office has confirmed that Democratic leadership is looking to have a stimulus package ready for Barack Obama to sign shortly upon taking office.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, backed up reports from Sunday and early Monday that Congress would work on a massive stimulus package to be prepared for a presidential signature on January 21st. The hope -- as Obama himself noted during a press conference announcing his economic team on Monday -- is to hit the ground running once he takes office, in efforts to repair the teetering economy.

"I want to see [a stimulus package] enacted right away. It is going to be of a size and scope that is needed to get this economy back on track," he said. "We have a consensus, which is pretty rare, between conservative economists and liberal economists that we need a big stimulus package that will jolt the economy back into shape and that it is focused on ... delivering the 2.5 million jobs I am talking about."

Obama would not get into the details of what, exactly, the stimulus would look like. "I don't want to get into numbers right now," he said.