WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama Saturday stepped up his pressure on Congress to act swiftly as some Republican leaders were skeptical of a hard-won deal of the stimulus bill reached late Friday.
"In the midst of our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the American people were hoping that Congress would begin to confront the great challenges we face," said Obama in his weekly radio and Internet address.
"We can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary. The scale and scope of this plan is right. And the time for action is now," said the president.
Obama stressed that the bill was necessary to save jobs. "It will save or create more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, all across the country ... and all of them jobs that help us recover today, and prosper tomorrow."
Obama worked hard on Friday to push Senate Democratic leaders to strike a deal with a handful of Republican moderates on a tentative agreement.
The 780-billion-U.S.-dollar version was smaller than the original roughly 935-billion-dollar package. Many Republican senators have said they want the total package's cost down to about 800 billion dollars.
Not counted in that estimate are several popular tax breaks -- including measures to encourage auto and home sales -- that were approved this week on the Senate floor and are expected to be incorporated into the legislation.
Those could push the final cost of the Senate plan closer to 820 billion dollars and a vote on the deal might come as soon as Monday, according to the U.S. media.
Among the 110 billion dollars in spending cuts: 40 billion dollars from a 79-billion-dollar fund aimed at helping states preserve school funding as they try to balance their budgets.
And negotiators cut in half 15 billion dollars in "incentive grants" for states that meet certain goals for their initial education allotment."
The compromise also would cut 5 billion dollars from a plan to help unemployed workers pay for health-care coverage, reducing the amount the federal government would pay for COBRA premiums to 50 percent from 65 percent.
And it would cut 2 billion dollars from a plan to help critical-access hospitals computerize medical records.
The deal followed news earlier Friday that the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent in January, the highest level since 1992,as employers slashed 598,000 jobs.
January's drop, far worse than the 524,000 that economists expected, followed revised declines of 577,000 in December.
The U.S. economy has lost a staggering 3.6 million jobs since December 2007, when the recession began. And about one-half of this cut occurred in the past three months.
Obama thus urged the Congress to quickly approve his massive stimulus plan, warning the current crisis could "turn into a catastrophe" if the Congress does not act swiftly.
"We'll continue to get devastating job reports like today's -- month after month, year after year," he said.
Democrats, who have 58 of the 100 seats in the Senate, will need at least two Republican votes to avoid procedural roadblocks which could stymie the measure.
The House passed an 819-billion-dollar version of the stimulus plan last week, but no Republican voted in favor of it.
However, some Republican leaders were still not satisfied with the compromise, saying many of the provisions won't create jobs.
"Most of us are deeply skeptical that this will work, and that level of skepticism leads us to believe that this course of action should not be chosen," said Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Republican Senator John McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election, also voiced his strong opposition. "If this legislation is passed, it will be a very bad day for America," he warned.
"We borrowed 800 billion dollars between the Revolutionary War and the presidency of Jimmy Carter and we are going to borrow that amount in one fell swoop," said Republican Senator John Thune.
But Democratic Senator Kent Conrad said that he expected at least three moderate Republicans will support the economic stimulus package.
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