Pressure on Congress Over Spending Plan

The US president, Barack Obama, is due to go to Congress today to lobby Republican Congressional leaders hostile to a multibillion-dollar spending package aimed at getting the US out of recession.

Only a week after the heady optimism of inauguration day, Obama will come up against political reality when he holds a private meeting with house Republican leaders.

Opposition is building among Republicans who are already rejecting the president's calls for a bipartisan approach to the economic crisis and are threatening to vote against the bill when it goes before the house tomorrow.

The bill is aimed at pumping a staggering $825bn (£600bn) into the economy to try to reverse the deepening recession. The biggest spending package since Roosevelt's New Deal, the bill aims to save or create 3m to 4m jobs through a series of infrastructure projects, including new roads, bridges, electricity lines and sewage works.

But Republicans are expressing skepticism about whether many of the projects in the bill would help stimulate the economy. The success of Obama's presidency hangs on this bill.

Obama, who is resigned to spending much of the next few weeks lobbying Republicans, yesterday called for the bill to be passed as a matter of urgency. He is hoping it will be on his desk at the Oval Office for signing by 16 February.

Speaking to journalists at the White House yesterday, Obama said the nation could not afford distractions or delay, listing major companies that have recently shed tens of thousands of jobs.

The Democrats have a big enough majority in the house to get Obama's bill through. Although the Democrats enjoy a majority in the Senate too, it is not big enough to prevent Republican delaying tactics.

Senator John McCain, defeated by Obama in the November election, is among Republicans who have promised in recent days to vote against the bill. "There have to be major rewrites if we want to stimulate the economy ... As it stands now, I can't vote for it," he said.

The house Republican leader, John Boehner, predicted that members of his party would vote against the package because it includes too much spending that does not create jobs, and too few tax cuts.

Obama included proposals for tax cuts in the bill to try to win over Republicans, but Republicans argue that they do not go far enough and that too much of the $825bn package covers Obama's campaign pledges on education and health, which will not stimulate the economy.

The Republicans are unlikely to wreck the bill, only to seek more concessions in the weeks ahead.

The tax cuts would take $275bn of the $825bn, education $142bn, healthcare $111bn, welfare and unemployment benefits $102bn, and infrastructure $122bn.

James Clyburn, the Democratic majority whip in the house, yesterday expressed hope that Republicans would vote for the bill. "I hope we can get a good bipartisan vote for it. I think that is what the American people want," he said in an interview on MSNBC.

The American public wanted Congress to put aside partisanship to get people back to work, he said, adding that the Republicans could resume normal partisan politics next year in the run-up to the mid-term Congressional elections.

Tim Geithner, Obama's choice as Treasury secretary, was expected to be confirmed later yesterday by the Senate. He ran into trouble at this confirmation hearings after revelations that he had failed to pay his tax bills.