Economic Stimulus, Economy | featured news

House, Senate leaders scale plan down to $789.5B, a net reduction of almost $40B from what the Senate approved yesterday, senior adviser says.

After a 61-to-37 vote that was largely along party lines, negotiations with the House over the $838 billion bill will begin.

Chafing over congressional delays, an energized President Barack Obama on Monday rallies supporters in Indiana and addresses his first presidential news conference in a new drive for passage of an $800 billion economic recovery plan.

Obama's new Treasury chief favors aggressive use of all available tools to bolster the U.S. economy.

The US president defends his economic stimulus plan as "absolutely necessary", and urges Congress to approve it quickly.

The House version of the stimulus bill emphasizes helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts, while the Senate plan focuses more on tax cuts.

A coalition of Democrats and some Republicans reached a compromise that trimmed billions in spending from an earlier version of the Senate economic stimulus bill.

The U.S. Senate went home Thursday night after hours of sometimes acrimonious work without voting on a massive economic recovery plan championed by President Barack Obama.

Moderates work to slash tens of billions of dollars from bill in hopes of attracting bipartisan support.

President Obama said Thursday that the time for talk on an economic recovery package is over and "the time for action is now.".