Obama says stimulus bill delivers fastest tax cut in history

The president also announced that the Treasury Department has already begun directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks, which he said would result in at least $65 more a month in take-home pay for a typical family as soon as April 1 of this year.

To put the $787 billion bill into perspective, the president said the law would result in "shovels in the ground, cranes in the air, and workers rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, and repairing our faulty levees and dams."

He also said the law would mean that companies that produce renewable energy could now apply for loan guarantees and tax credits "and find ways to grow instead of laying people off." And he promised that families would be able to lower their energy bills by weatherizing their homes.

In broad language, the president said the stimulus bill would enable children to graduate from 21st century schools and earn a college degree, and he said lives will be saved and health care costs will be cut with new computerized medical records.

"Because of what we did, there will now be police on the beat, firefighters on the job, and teachers preparing lesson plans who thought they would not be able to continue pursuing their critical missions," the president said. "And [to] ensure that all of this is done with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability, I have assigned a team of managers to make sure that precious tax dollars are invested wisely and well."

The bill also helps Obama keep an important campaign promise to cut taxes for working families. "Because of what we did, 95 percent of all working families will get a tax cut -- in keeping with a promise I made on the campaign," the president said.

The president's language seemed designed to change the dialogue in Washington and enable the White House to celebrate a victory of passing the biggest stimulus package in U.S. history in less than a month's time.

The president is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday for a major national speech, although it is not being called an official State of the Union address. The White House apparently plans to use the speech to push for the remaining elements in Obama's economic recovery proposal.

Obama on Saturday said the stimulus bill is "only a first step on the road to economic recovery" and warned that the nation "can't fail to complete the journey." He said the country must stop the spread of foreclosures and falling home values and help responsible homeowners stay in their homes," which he said his new housing plan would do. And he said the country still needed to stabilize and repair the banking system.

Mindful of the huge price tag involved in the stimulus effort, the White House this week begins an effort to look for ways to achieve fiscal discipline and holds a bipartisan White House summit on Monday to discuss how to trim the federal deficit. 

On Tuesday the president speaks to Congress and on Thursday he releases his new budget, which he said will be "sober in its assessments" and "honest in its accounting" and details his strategy "for investing in what we need, cutting what we don't, and restoring fiscal discipline."