A spokeswoman for Mr. Geithner, Stephanie Cutter, had no comment.

In an interview on Monday Mr. Axelrod did not deny that there were differences of opinion as the policy was being crafted or that he had taken a harder line on issues such as executive pay restrictions, as other participants to the discussions recalled. But he said he was ultimately satisfied with the final product put forward by Mr. Geithner.“We had a great and productive discussion and as a result we came up with a good set of guidelines and rules,” he said. “I didn’t come away disappointed in any way.”

The White House is hoping that its rescue plan will be perceived as a more coherent rescue effort than the Bush administration’s, and one whose breadth and scope are so vast that it begins to restore financial confidence in the battered markets and entices private investors to come off the sidelines.

The plan is calibrated to work on multiple fronts, with promises to invest billions of dollars in scores of ailing banks and creation of a new institution to relieve bank balance sheets of their most troubled assets.

It will also renew a legislative proposal giving bankruptcy judges greater authority to modify mortgages on more favorable terms to borrowers and over the objections of banks.

Officials say that new rules encouraging transparency and limiting lobbying are intended to begin to restore political confidence in a program that has faced withering criticism in Congress, an effort that they view as essential because they expect to return to Congress for more money later this year.

But as intended largely by Mr. Geithner, the plan stops short of intruding too significantly into bankers’ affairs even as they come onto the public dole.

The $500,000 pay cap for executives at companies receiving assistance, for instance, applies only to very senior executives. Some officials argued for caps that applied to every employee at institutions that received taxpayer money.