President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday that he would ban earmarks – pork-barrel projects of lawmakers – from the economic recovery and reinvestment package he is asking Congress to pass this month.

“We are going to stop talking about government reform and we’re actually going to start executing,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to reporters briefly after meeting with his top economic advisers. “We are ready for the challenge.”

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On his second full day in the capital as the president-elect, Mr. Obama also warned that the country faced the prospect of “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on.” He said he was troubled by the staggering $1 trillion figure, adding: “I’m going to be willing to make some very difficult choices on how we get a handle on this deficit.”

But Mr. Obama said the $775 billion recovery plan was urgently needed to jumpstart the economy. He pledged to be a watchful steward over the money, offering the restriction on earmarks as an example of how he intended to be mindful of Republican criticism that the package could be too costly.

“We’re not going to be able to expect the American people to support this effort,” Mr. Obama said, unless “investments are made wisely and managed well.”

In addition to the ban on earmarks, Mr. Obama also said he would create a new Economic Recovery Oversight Board and put all government spending on the Internet in an easy-to-search format.

“We will set a new, higher standard of accountability, transparency and oversight,” Mr. Obama said. “We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert projects without review.”