Several Democrats on the Finance Committee earlier in the day questioned the proposal to give tax credits worth $500 to individuals and $1,000 to married couples. Several senators said that initiative would provide a token sum of money, which taxpayers were likely to save, not spend.

Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and others also criticized a proposal to give businesses a $3,000 tax credit for each new employee they hire, saying it was unlikely to influence business decisions.

After meeting with Mr. Summers, Mr. Kerry said he expected adjustments to be made. “We are in a good dialogue,” he said. “I am very confident about some adjustments being made.”

The Democratic demands clash with those of Republicans who want more tax cuts and express doubts that heavy infrastructure spending would be the best way to stimulate the economy. “It’s very important as we go ahead that we find the right balance,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader. “Yes, our economy needs help. But at the end of the day, how much debt are we going to pile on future generations?”

With the cascade of conflicting opinions, Mr. Obama’s allies pushed for quick passage. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House speaker, said she would cancel the President’s Day recess in mid-February if lawmakers had not passed an economic plan by then. “If we don’t have a bill before the president’s recess, there will be no president’s recess,” she told reporters.

Mr. Obama reinforced that urgency in a speech at George Mason University in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. “For every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet,” he said, “more Americans will lose their jobs, more families will lose their savings, more dreams will be deferred, and our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.”

The speech was his first since the election and indicated how fully he is stepping into the role of president when it comes to domestic issues even before his inauguration. His advisers have calculated that he cannot wait to begin a campaign to build public support and have mapped out a series of events to explain his economic approach, including booking him on the ABC program “This Week” on Sunday.