As Congress Fiddles With $800 Billion 'Spendulus' Package, Administration Waits a Day on Bailout Details

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will postpone for a day the Obama administration's new framework to aid the financial sector on Tuesday as Congress returns Monday to sort out the details of a $827 billion economic recovery package.

Geithner had been scheduled to announce the plan Monday, buy Treasury spokesman Isaac Baker said Sunday the administration wants to spend that day focused on the Senate's effort to pass the spending and tax cut bill aimed at getting the economy moving again. A vote had been delayed as a compromise was worked out in the Senate. Then lawmakers from both the House and Senate will have to figure out a way to reconcile their varying packages.

That means the details of the administration's plan to spend another $350 billion to bailout banks and financial institutions locked in a credit crunch will have to wait a day.

TARP-2, as it is called, is the second installment of the Trouble Assets Relief Program passed by Congress in October. That legislation aimed to pass out cash to get the credit markets -- frozen from bad housing debts -- moving again.

But after the first $350 billion was doled out with virtually no oversight, the Obama administration said it is going to make sure rules are in place to keep the banks from wasting the government credit.

If it works, it should get credit moving again so people can buy homes and cars and start using credit cards. But if it doesn't, it means taxpayers could be stuck with billions of losses on failed loans.

TARP 2 also plans to put $100 billion into helping homeowners facing foreclosure and it is likely to contain a means to "rope off" toxic assets from other, more stable loans using a delicate balance between taxpayer and private funds.

ON "FOX News Sunday," National Economic Council Chairman Larry Summers said the goal is for the government to offer incentives to the private sector to make it more appealing to buy bad debt.

"It can't all be private capital. We can't just say, 'Private sector, please invest,' not given the size of the financial mess that we inherited," Summers said. "With the right strategic approaches, Secretary Geithner believes that we can bring in substantial private capital, and that's something we all ought to be able to agree on, that where we can catalyze private capital, that's a better root to solving this problem than government resources."

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Geithner will also stress that the second half of TARP is going to have a lot more "transparency" and "accountability."

"One of the most neglected parts of the TARP approach under the Bush administration was that they neglected the housing component. So I'm looking forward to what Secretary Geithner has to say on that issue going forward," Van Hollen said.

This may not be the last of the government bailouts, however. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodyseconomy.com, said he thinks the White House will need to ask for another $350 billion down the road.

That potential has Sen. Lamar Alexander in a furor over the decision to go for the economic recovery program while still dealing with the financial bailout. He told FOX News that if the administration knew it was going to ask for more for housing and banks, it should start there rather than seeking $800 billion for an array of spending programs that he says won't solve the credit crisis.

Republicans "wanted lower mortgage interest rate for most credit-worthy Americans and tax credit for home buyers. We had other ideas. (Democrats) have ideas. Let's do that first," Alexander, R-Tenn., said. "We know we're going to have to spend several hundred billion dollars on the bank problems, on the troubled assets. Then we might have had less appetite, just to waste money on passing spending projects that really have nothing to do with stimulus."

FOX News' Caroline Shively and The Associated Press contributed to this report.