With bad economic news stacking up like cord wood, President-elect Barack Obama is ceding pressing decisions to the Bush administration and members of Congress. But judicious and respectful deference risks looking like avoidance.

Obama has offered to let his team participate in talks between Bush officials and congressional leaders over how to spend the second half of a $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program for the financial sector. But Obama officials want Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to take the lead in fashioning a plan for the money in the face of broad congressional scepticism.

Obama has history and the Constitution on his side. Before he takes office on January 20, he wields no executive authority. The only power he has comes from his current popularity and the decisiveness of his presidential victory.

But Democrats publicly and privately are getting anxious for action. Just this week, House financial Services Chairman Barney Frank called on Obama "to be more assertive than he's been". Democratic senators seeking to structure a rescue loan for the auto industry have urged him to step in and settle a squabble over the source of the money.

Obama has focused the first weeks of his transition on rolling out his economic team and pressing for an economic recovery package that he wants to sign into law shortly after taking office.

One has to go back 76 years to find precedent in a similar economic catastrophe. Then, Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously let his five-month transition pass by keeping his distance from Herbert Hoover. The two men had sharp policy differences over how to address the Great Depression. When FDR took office in March of 1933, he had a major crisis in his hands.

"The same inhibitions would apply to Obama as they did to FDR," said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University and congressional expert. "You don't want to become completely involved in an outgoing administration. In a sense, it has made its mess and you're not in any obligation to come in and make it look prettier."

Obama has not sugarcoated the state of the economy. In fact, he has prepared the public for more bad news. At the same time, he has made it clear that the blame rests with policies of the past.

"There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better," he said on Friday as news broke that employers eliminated 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years.

How to spend the second half of the Troubled Asset Relief Programme illustrates Obama's dilemma. The Government Accountability Office criticised the programme's oversight in an audit this week, while members of Congress from both parties have voiced doubts about its use and success. And Paulson wants access to the remaining $350 billion.

Obama will inherit Paulson's work and he has insisted the programme needs to be aimed more at reducing mortgage foreclosures. As a result, his economic team has agreed to be part of talks with Congress, but wants Paulson to fashion the plan.

The auto bailout faces not only an internal party squabble over its funding. It also has little public support.

A CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll this week showed 61 percent of those surveyed oppose providing the auto companies with billions in federal assistance.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate banking committee, said the president-elect needs to use his political authority now to resolve the auto dispute.

"In the minds of the people, this is the Obama administration," he said recently. "I don't think we can wait until January 20." – The Associated Press