elect Barack Obama countered critics with an analysis Saturday by his economic team showing that a program of tax cuts and spending like he has proposed under his $775 billion plan would create up to 4.1 million jobs, far more than the 3 million he has insisted are needed to lift the country from recession. Congressional Republicans reacted skeptically, just as Obama acknowledged that he would be forced to recant some of his campaign promises given the economic crisis facing the country. Even the president-elect's own economists acknowledged their two-year estimates could be wrong. The 14-page analysis, which was posted online, says estimates are “subject to significant margins of error” - because of the assumptions that went into the economic models and because it is not known what might be approved by Congress. “These numbers are a stark reminder that we simply cannot continue on our current path,” Obama said in his weekly radio and YouTube broadcast address. “If nothing is done, economists from across the spectrum tell us that this recession could linger for years and the unemployment rate could reach double digits - and they warn that our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world,” he said. Obama has provided few details of his $775 billion plan so far. This fresh report does not include the specific construction of his tax cuts, the amounts dedicated to state aid or public works - key questions that Obama aides have closely held. On Saturday, economic aides and advisers declined to lay out even rough estimates for the plan's components. They said they worked with broad instructions from Obama but did not want to limit negotiations with congressional leaders by outlining their limits in public. “I want to be realistic here. Not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped,” Obama told ABC television's “This Week” for an interview set to air Sunday. For a second time since his election, Obama increased the number of jobs his stimulus program would create, taking the number to as many as 4.1 million jobs saved or created - a benchmark his critics charge cannot be measured. During the campaign, he promised only 1 million new jobs. The analysis came out one day after news that the unemployment rate had jumped to 7.2 percent, the highest in 16 years. The US lost 524,000 jobs in December, bringing the total job loss for last year to 2.6 million, the largest since World War II.
