President Barack Obama has been urging congressional officials to pass a massive fiscal stimulus package by mid-February. The House is set to vote on the proposal on Wednesday; once accepted, it will take several more weeks to weigh out the details.

Obama said on Wednesday morning he is "confident" the package will pass through Congress.

The massive package includes $550 billion in spending programs and $275 billion in tax cuts. After meeting with top Republicans at the Capitol on Tuesday, the Obama administration said a $69 billion proposal from Senate Republicans, which relieves Americans from the alternative minimum tax, would be added to the bill.

A client note from Goldman Sachs said the U.S. economy "urgently needs" a large fiscal stimulus. "Consumers are cutting back in a way not seen since World War II, and businesses are following suit," the note said.

Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag, has said more than three-quarters of the two-year stimulus, which nears $900 billion in total, will impact the economy within 18 months. Many Republicans have been calling for less spending projects and more tax cuts, which they argue would help consumers more quickly.

"We're not going to get 100% agreement, and we might not even get 50% agreement," Obama said to reporters after meeting with Republicans on Tuesday. "But I do think that people appreciate me walking them through my thought processes on this."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that $169 billion of the package will hit the economy before September, with the bulk of it showing up in 2010 and 2011.

Economists at Goldman said the stimulus bill "is a major step in the right direction," but that the package is too small to be sufficient.

"We reckon that the appropriate level of stimulus is $600 billion (bn) at an annual rate, or 4% of GDP, with the remaining 2% filled by a narrowing in the current account deficit," they wrote, adding that on a five-year view, the stimulus package should total $2 trillion. 

Should the package be passed, as is widely anticipated, it will be the first major win for the 44th president.

By Patrick McGee and edited by Sarah Sussman
©CEP News Ltd. 2009