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FORT MYERS, Fla. - Fresh from his first White House news conference, President Barack Obama hit the road on Tuesday to rally support for a huge economic stimulus plan among Americans hit by the deepening recession.

Obama lobbied Congress hard from Florida, declaring that Americans are out of patience with Washington gridlock as lawmakers dicker over legislative details.

In a throwback to last year's political campaign, Obama held town hall meeting-style event in Fort Myers.

The state's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, who was a vocal supporter of Sen. John McCain in the 2008 election, introduced Obama.

"This is not about partisan politics," said Crist. "This is about rising above that."

The president called for Democrats and Republicans to work together, telling the crowd: "When the town is burning, you don't check party labels. Everybody needs to grab a hose."

"That is why I put forth a recovery and reinvestment plan, and that is the simple idea at its core," added Obama. "It's a plan that will save or create up to four million jobs over the next two years, ignite spending by business and consumers alike, and make the investments necessary for lasting economic growth and prosperity."

Meantime in Washington, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled a highly anticipated new bank rescue strategy.

He promised that the administration will cleanse up to $500 billion in spoiled assets from banks' books and support $1 trillion in new lending through an expanded Federal Reserve program.

"To get credit flowing again, to restore confidence in our markets, and restore the faith of the American people, we are fundamentally reshaping the government's program to repair the financial system," said Geithner at the Treasury Department.

Also Tuesday, the Senate passed a $838 billion stimulus plan, 61-37.

"That's good news," the president said repeatedly in announcing the Senate's action to a Florida crowd, as people jumped to their feet and cheered in joy.

Still, Obama soberly cautioned: "We've got a little more work to do."

Now, the Senate and the House of Representatives will enter final negotiations on a compromise, with Obama arbitrating disputes. The House's version was priced at $819 billion.

The massive package is an important milestone for the new president who wants a finished product on his desk by Feb. 16, Presidents Day.

His roadshow this week is meant to illustrate the importance of the job creation measures the stimulus contains for average Americans. At a stop Monday in Elkhart, Ind., a community reeling in job losses during the recession, Obama told a town hall meeting: "Doing nothing is not an option."

'The plan is not perfect'
The president pressed Congress Monday night to urgently approve a massive economic recovery bill, using the first prime-time news conference of his presidency to warn that a failure to act "could turn a crisis into a catastrophe."

With the nation falling deeper into a long and painful recession, Obama defended his program against Republican criticism that it is loaded with pork-barrel spending and will not create jobs.

"The plan is not perfect," the president said. "No plan is. I can't tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans."

Obama addressed the nation from the East Room of the White House in a news conference that lasted almost one hour. He hit repeatedly at the themes he has emphasized in recent weeks.

Obama said his administration inherited a deficit of more than $1 trillion along with "the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression."

"That is a deficit that could turn a crisis into a catastrophe. And I refuse to let that happen. As long as I hold this office, I will do whatever it takes to put this country back to work."

"If there's anyone out there who still doesn't believe this constitutes a full-blown crisis," Obama said, "I suggest speaking to one of the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside down because they don't know where their next paycheck is coming from."

Old habits
Obama said he had made a deliberate effort to reach out to the GOP, putting three Republicans into his Cabinet, and "as I continue to make these overtures, over time, hopefully that will be reciprocated."

"So my bottom line when it comes to the recovery package is: send me a bill that creates or saves 4 million jobs."

Obama acknowledged the difficulty of mending political divisions between Republicans and Democrats.

"Old habits are hard to break," he said. "We're coming off an election, and people sort of want to test the limits of what they can get. There's a lot of jockeying in this town and who's up and who's down, testing for the next election."

Great Depression
Speedy passage of legislation to pump federal money into the crippled economy has become a major test of Obama's young presidency.

On Monday, the day that an $838 billion version of the legislation cleared a crucial test vote in the Senate, Obama warned darkly of the consequences he contended would result from inaction. By a 61-36 margin, with all but three Republican senators opposing it, the package advanced toward its ultimately successful final passage on Tuesday.

Officials have frequently suggested the current recession, which has catapulted the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent and erased 3.6 million jobs, is the worst U.S. economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But no one has been suggesting the economic downturn could be permanent.

Compromise ahead?
Next comes reconciliation of House and Senate versions of the bill.

The two measures overlap in many ways, by combining hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending with tax cuts designed to increase spending by consumers.

But the Senate bill has a greater emphasis on tax cuts, while the House bill devotes more money to states, local governments and schools.

Meeting the president's timetable would require the difficult negotiations and subsequent votes in both chambers to be complete by the end of this week.

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