GM factory workers who get laid off typically get "sub pay," in which they receive unemployment benefits, and GM pays the difference, up to most of their salary, for 48 weeks.

After unemployment pay runs out, the laid-off workers would go into the jobs bank, where the company pays laid-off workers most of their pay and benefits while trying to find them jobs elsewhere.

"We expect that discussion around entitlements [Social Security and Medicare] will be a part, a central part of those plans," Obama said. "And I would expect that by February in line with the announcement of at least a rough budget outline we will have more to say about how we're going to approach entitlement spending."

For the first time, Obama gave a ballpark price tag for his massive economic plan aimed at generating jobs and jolting the country out of recession. Aides have said it could cost as much as $775 billion over two years. Outside economists have suggested as much as $1.2 trillion would be needed.

Killefer is the third Obama nominee to face tax troubles, following questions about Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for health and human services secretary.

...Obama promises a $1,000 check for every family, financed by a "windfall profits" tax on oil companies. Obama is unintimidated by the rule against legislating about subjects one cannot define.

Obama thinks government is not getting a "reasonable share" of oil companies' profits, which in 2007 were, as a percentage of revenue (8.3 percent), below those of U.S. manufacturing generally (8.9 percent). Exxon Mobil pays almost as much in corporate taxes to various governments as the bottom 50 percent of American earners pay in income taxes. Exxon Mobil does make $1,400 a second in profits -- hear the sharp intakes of breath from liberals with pursed lips -- but pays $4,000 a second in taxes and $15,000 a second in operating costs.