FACTBOX: Obama comments on economic issues

(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday announced a new panel to advise him on stabilizing financial markets as his latest effort to tackle problems ailing the U.S. economy.

In his third news conference this week, Obama also addressed several economic issues that will confront his administration when he takes office on January 20. Here are some details of the issues he has discussed this week:

NAMES ECONOMIC OFFICIALS

* Obama named former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to head his new President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which will generate ideas on how to handle the current economic crisis. Longtime Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee was named staff director for the panel.

* Obama named Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag to head the White House Office of Management and Budget. He named Rob Nabors, who worked for the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, as the deputy director of the OMB.

* On Monday Obama named New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner to be the next Treasury secretary.

* He named former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to head the White House National Economic Council. Obama called Summers "one of the great economic minds of our time."

* Christina Romer, a macroeconomist and economic historian at the University of California, Berkeley, who studied the U.S. recovery from the Great Depression, was named as chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

CREDIT FLOWS

* Obama said he supported the most recent efforts by the Treasury to keep credit flowing and said it was important for federal agencies to act "in a forceful fashion" to get credit to markets.

BUDGET REFORM

* Obama said budget reform is vital. "In these challenging times, when we are facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option. It is an imperative."

* Obama said budget priorities would include healthcare modernization, schools and "a down payment on a new energy economy."

NEED FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN, STIMULUS

* Obama said as soon as economic recovery is well under way the government must set up a long-term plan to reduce the structural deficit to ensure it is not leaving "a mountain of debt" for the next generation.

* On Monday he said he would not discuss how big a stimulus package might be needed, saying only that it had to be "significant enough that it really gives a jolt to the economy" and adding that "it's going to be costly."

* Obama said the current financial turmoil would require "extraordinary policy responses." He said his administration would honor public commitments made by the Bush administration to address the crisis.

HEALTH CARE

* On Tuesday Obama suggested some changes in healthcare to modernize the system. "As an example, helping local hospitals and providers set up electronic billing and electronic medical records, that experts across the spectrum consider to be an important step toward a more efficient health care system."

TAXES

* On Monday Obama did not directly answer when asked if he would let the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010 or if he would use legislation to repeal them before then.

* He said only that he wants to "restore balance" to the tax code. "The Bush tax cuts were disproportionately targeted toward the very wealthiest Americans."

AUTO INDUSTRY

* Asked what he thought about the struggling U.S. auto industry, and recent pleas by Detroit automakers for a bigger government rescue package, Obama said: "We can't allow the auto industry to simply vanish. We've got to make sure that ... the workers and suppliers and businesses that rely on the auto industry stay in business."

* But he said the government could not just "write a blank check to the auto industry."

* He said he was surprised that the automakers did not have "a better thought out proposal" when they testified before Congress last week.

(Reporting by Deborah Charles in Washington; Editing by David Wiessler)