Obama economic strategic

President Barack Obama said Saturday his administration will outline a new strategy in the coming days for spending billions of federal dollars to pull the nation out of an economic crisis he described as "devastating."

Obama and his top advisers are weighing how to structure the remaining $350 billion that Congress approved last year to save financial institutions and lenders from collapse. The new president also warned there is no single action that would allow his administration to fix the struggling U.S. economy, a stark statement at the end of a week that saw hundreds of thousands of Americans lose their jobs.

Obama and his aides spent his first two weeks in power working on the nation's economic troubles. The final three months of last year sent the economy into its worst downhill slide in a quarter-century. The economy stumbled backward at a 3.8 percent pace, government economists said Friday; that rate could accelerate to 5 percent or more this quarter.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with the administration's top officials and advisers in recent days, trying to finish a plan to overhaul the $700 billion bailout program that is already half gone. Geithner previously said the administration is weighing the possibility of using a government-run "bad bank" to buy up toxic assets that are weighing on the books of financial institutions, but some officials now say that option is gone because of potential costs.

Many of the measures under consideration could end up costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars beyond the original $700 billion price tag. Aides would not rule out the possibility of the administration's asking for more than the $350 billion already allocated.

Obama didn't commit his administration to any decision Saturday but broadly described his ideal final package.

Obama's message — largely repackaged from a week of White House statements — was as much for the country as it was for lawmakers: Pass the separate American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan or things are going to get worse.

Obama last week won passage of a separate $825 billion economic stimulus plan in the House — without a single Republican vote. It now heads to the Senate, where Vice President Joe Biden predicts the measure will fare better among GOP lawmakers.

Republicans pledged on Saturday to work with Obama, although leaders cautioned against treating government spending like a "trillion-dollar Christmas list" and renewed their opposition to much of the bill's spending.

Republicans said they hope the administration takes into account their wishes.