The rebates are the most costly portion of an emerging $145 billion economic stimulus measure. One option floated by Democrats, said two Democratic congressional aides, includes rebates of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples distributed to a wide spectrum of workers, including those in lower-income brackets.
Bush backs larger rebates of $800-1,600, but his plan would miss 30 million working households who earn paychecks but owe no income tax, according to calculations by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said negotiators were near an agreement on including an overhaul of the Federal Housing Administration that would make it easier for thousands of homeowners with ballooning interest rates to refinance into federally insured loans.
Both sides also support taking temporary action to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - government-sponsored companies that are the two biggest U.S. financers an! d guarantors of home loans - to buy loans much larger than the current $417,000 cap. He said that lending cap might reach as high as $700,000 in areas with the highest home prices.
Frank said Democrats were still pressing for expanding unemployment benefits as well as for more money for food stamps, home heating subsidies and aid to states for their Medicaid programs.
Some lawmakers expressed alarm about the stimulus package more than doubling last year's deficit of $163 billion.
"I am concerned that, in our rush to help, we will talk ourselves into a quick, feel-good hit Wednesday that will leave us with a bigger budgetary hangover Thursday," said Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, top Republican on the budget panel.
In the Senate, Democratic and Republican Leaders Harry Reed of Nevada and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have agreed to stand back and let the House take the lead in the talks with the administration.
The aim is to have legislati! on ready for Bush to sign in just a few weeks, lightning speed! for tax and spending measures that can take months or even years to win approval.
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Associated Press writers Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Martin Crutsinger contributed to this report.
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