WASHINGTON -- Work continued Saturday night on a massive government intervention plan to rescue financial institutions by buying up their bad assets.

Treasury officials met with congressional staffers for about two hours on Capitol Hill Saturday. Discussions centered on how the $700 billion plan would work.

Democrats want to help more strapped borrowers stay in their homes and want to condition the bailout on new limits on pay for executives.

President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conferred by phone Saturday afternoon, gauging how the negotiations were unfolding.

Among the key issues up for negotiation is which financial institutions would be eligible for the help. For instance, could hedge funds and pension funds qualify?

The White House said the president is hoping for a deal by the time markets open Monday. Top lawmakers said they'll push to enact the plan in a matter of days.

As a point of interest: if you started counting now at the rate of one number a second, it would take you more than 31 years to reach a billion.

The economy could suffer a massive hangover in the form of soaring debt from the government's efforts to rescue the financial system.

The $700 billion requested to take a mountain of bad loans off the books of financial firms comes at a time when the federal budget deficit is already soaring.

The Bush administration is estimating the deficit for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 will hit $482 billion. That doesn't include the $200 billion being put up to cover the government takeover of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The figure also doesn't include any of the $700 billion the administration is seeking to soak up the bad mortgage-backed securities.

A draft of the rescue legislation says the administration wants to boost the debt limit to $11.3 trillion -- an increase of $700 billion from the current limit.

But the higher the debt goes, the higher the government's borrowing costs and the less it has to spend on other programs. Interest on the debt is already costing taxpayers more than $400 billion a year.

Bush: Big Bailout Needed For Big Problem

At a White House news conference Saturday, Bush defended the size of the package saying, "This is a big package because it was a big problem."

He also spoke about it in his weekly radio address, saying he worried Wall Street's financial troubles "could ripple throughout" the economy and affect average citizens. And he said, "The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package."

"Our free enterprise system rests on the conviction that the Federal government should intervene in the marketplace only when necessary. Given the precarious state of our financial markets and their vital importance to the daily lives of the American people, government intervention is not only warranted, it is essential," a transcript of the radio address said.

He also said further stress on the nation's financial markets could reverberate and "cause massive job losses, devastate retirement accounts, further erode housing values, and dry up new loans for homes, cars, and college tuitions,"

The plan would raise the statutory limit on the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion.

Cnn.com reported that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, lawmakers and their aides are working to craft a bill swiftly. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill said they expect the bill to go before a vote within days, CNN.com reported.

Meanwhile, Sen. Barack Obama is praising the steps being taken by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to help the financial markets avoid collapse.

But in the Democrats' weekly radio address, Obama said regular Americans need help, too.

He said people need help to stay in their homes and cope with rising gas and food prices. He said jobs must be created, schools improved and roads repaired.

Obama also said the solution to Wall Street's problems should not reward irresponsible borrowers, lenders or CEOs who "helped cause this mess."