President Barack Obama pledged to use a proposed $825 billion (€635bn) economic recovery package to create jobs, improve health care and expand renewable energy.
The new president, who took office on Tuesday with the US in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, met with his economic advisers after several days of lobbying lawmakers for quick passage of the stimulus package.
Mr Obama's economic team also is working on a plan for the remaining half of a $700 billion bailout that Congress approved last year help US financial firms.
The plan is expected help distressed banks as well as providing aid for people who face losing their homes.
The White House did not immediately release details of what was discussed at the economic team meeting or who attended.
Mr Obama used his first weekly Internet and radio address as president to press the case for quick passage of the plan.
Saying more people filed for unemployment this week than at any time in the past 26 years, Obama warned joblessness could hit double digits and the economy could fall $1 trillion (€770bn) short of its full capacity if nothing was done.
The White House posted a four-page report outlining the impact of the stimulus plan on its website www.whitehouse.gov
Aides said the report began to put 'meat on the bones' of Mr Obama's previously stated goals.
Obama reverses abortion services funding
President Obama reversed a ban on funding for non-US-based groups that provide legal voluntary abortion services within their countries.
Powerful anti-abortion groups in the US immediately criticised the lifting of the ban, but aid agencies welcomed the move, saying it would promote women's health.
Mr Obama said the ban had undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries, and that the issue had become too politicised.
Mr Obama's action reverses the so called 'Mexico City policy' initiated by President Reagan in 1984, cancelled by President Clinton and reinstated by President George W Bush in 2001.
