Still, the White House is not convinced it must act. The deliberations are tightly held, and aides to Mr. Bush say he will not make a decision about whether to offer a stimulus package, or what it should contain, until later this month, in time for his State of the Union address scheduled for Jan. 28. Appearing in New York on Monday, Mr. Bush’s Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., echoed that approach, and cautioned against any rush to action.

“Working through the current situation and getting the policy right,” Mr. Paulson said, “is more important than getting the policy announced quickly.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats were positioning themselves to get ahead of any proposal the White House might present. Aides to Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said that she had yet to conclude decisively that a stimulus package was needed, but that she had met with a group of economic advisers last month who urged her to take swift action aimed at stabilizing the jittery economy and lifting consumer confidence.

The group included Lawrence H. Summers, a Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton; Felix G. Rohatyn, the financier and former ambassador to France; and Laurence D. Fink, the chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, the global investment firm.

An aide to Ms. Pelosi said the three were “unanimous in saying that we should move out ahead." In an interview over the weekend, Mr. Summers said he believed that there was now a greater than 50 percent chance of a recession this year.

“My view is that now is the time to be thinking about policies that would provide recession insurance,” Mr. Summers said, “and if we wait until it’s entirely clear that there is a recession, it will be too late.”

But Democratic leaders said there was already a general consensus within the party that any stimulus package would be temporary and targeted to the middle class and the poor. Among the proposals under consideration are a $500 across-the-board rebate, possibly to be returned to taxpayers in their paychecks through the payroll tax system, as well as a plan to restore the $1,000 per child tax credit to many low-income families that currently do not qualify for it.