WASHINGTON — Senior Obama administration officials yesterday sought to intensify pressure on Congress to pass a massive stimulus package for the crumbling economy, warning lawmakers of the consequences of delay while rescheduling the unveiling of their financial rescue plan to keep the spotlight on Capitol Hill.

The White House asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to focus today on winning congressional support for the stimulus bill instead of detailing a highly anticipated initiative to aid financial firms, consumer credit markets and struggling homeowners. That rescue plan announcement was moved to tomorrow.

Obama plans to fly today to Elkhart, Ind., where the unemployment rate has soared to 15.3 percent — about twice the national average — before holding a prime-time news conference to urge congressional leaders to quickly reconcile the two versions of the bill.

The Senate will vote tomorrow on a package largely dictated by moderate Republicans and Democrats who last week insisted on big cuts in spending. That's the price President Obama had to pay to win the backing of three Republicans whose votes are needed to pass the plan.

Then the package goes into House-Senate negotiations, where the White House will have a seat at the table. It's likely that Obama will get personally involved, aides have said.

"The president is certainly going to be active in sharing his views as that process goes on," Lawrence Summers, his top economic adviser, said yesterday on ABC's "This Week."

Despite differences between House and Senate versions, the final product is coming into view:

• It's likely to be in the range of $800 billion. That's what Obama wants, and that's what both houses are delivering: $819 billion in the House and $827 billion in the Senate. The Senate bill includes more than $100 billion more in tax cuts and $100 billion less in spending.

• Obama's major tax cut — up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for families who fall under income thresholds in both 2009 and 2010 — is largely intact. It will cost about $140 billion, or nearly 20 percent of the overall plan.

• Emergency assistance to those hardest hit by the recession, including the unemployed and families needing healthcare and food stamps, also survived.

RESTORATION IS GOAL

Summers said yesterday that, as negotiations on the stimulus bill progress, Obama is interested in restoring support for education and for cash-strapped state and local governments — measures that were stripped out in the Senate version of the plan.

To persuade enough moderate Republicans to vote for the measure, leaders also added tax credits for home and auto purchases, and provided relief from the alternative minimum tax.

Still, the administration downplayed differences between the House and Senate measures, saying it was critical that Congress act swiftly.

"The most important thing is to get this done for the sake of an economy that lost 600,000 jobs in one month," Summers said.

Democratic aides, however, warned yesterday that it could be difficult to get the stimulus to the president's desk by Congress' self-imposed deadline of Friday.

The plan has come under intense criticism from many Republicans, who have called it unfocused and wasteful. They also have complained that they have been locked out of the bill-writing process, despite Obama's public efforts to reach out to Republicans.

"I know we're in trouble. I know America needs a stimulus. We need tax cuts. We need to spend money on infrastructure and on other programs that will immediately put people to work. But this is not it," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, warned that if a large stimulus plan were not enacted, it would have a "catastrophic" impact on the economy. "I feel very strongly it's in our hands, that if we can get this package through, we can turn it around and be back on the road to growth," Romer said on CBS.

TOXIC ASSETS AN ISSUE

Administration officials have emphasized that the economy needs both the stimulus package, which is aimed at creating millions of jobs and reviving consumer spending, and the financial system rescue plan, which is supposed to loosen the credit markets that provide the loans for homes, cars and businesses.

The rescue plan will lay out how the government intends to spend the second half of the $700 billion that Congress approved in October. It will attack the core issue facing banks: the toxic assets backed by failing mortgages and other loans that are weighing down their balance sheets and freezing up the lending markets. The administration will aim a one-two punch at this problem by insuring the losses on some of the bad assets while providing incentives for private investors to buy others, sources in contact with the administration said.

The rescue package is also expected to expand a Federal Reserve program to aid the trading of assets that finance the commercial real estate and residential mortgage markets. In addition, it will lay out a way for the government to invest in banks through bonds or preferred shares that could eventually give the government partial ownership if the banks don't pay back the aid. Administration officials are expected to detail clear guidelines for how financial firms can get this money, as well as how the government will expand oversight.

But the administration is not as far along on the part of the rescue plan that would spend $50 billion to $100 billion to help homeowners and may reveal only the broad outlines of that today.