"I think it's a good product," he added, saying he hoped the bill could be voted on as early as Monday by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The deal came after an overnight breakthrough following nine days of marathon negotiations in Congress, anxiously watched by jittery markets and governments worried about a meltdown in the world's biggest economy.

Lawmakers had been rushing to strike a deal before markets reopen with the Asian stock exchanges getting back to work late Sunday US time.

The main points of the bill, known as the Act of Emergency Economic Stabilization 2008, include the immediate release of 250 billion dollars, with future payments to be conditioned on approval by Congress.

The US government may buy up troubled assets from pension plans, local governments and small banks serving low-income families, but the bill also meets a key Republican demand by allowing the Treasury to set up an insurance program to guarantee troubled assets.

Four separate oversight agencies or processes, including a presence in the Treasury office, would be set up to conduct audits and prevent fraud. An independent inspector general would monitor the Treasury secretary's actions.

It would also give taxpayers an ownership stake and a chance to share in any future profits of participating companies, limit the compensation payments for company bosses and allow the government to help prevent home foreclosures.

US lawmakers had struggled to reach a deal on the original plan put forward on September 18 by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said earlier Sunday that President George W. Bush and his aides were "very pleased with the progress" made at the talks.

The plan aims to steady an economy reeling from a bursting of the US housing bubble that has ravaged the global banking system and dried up credit flows.

And Gregg said the hope was that overtime the the government would be able to resell the assets they buy up "into a stabler market, which means that we'll probably be able to sell them for a higher value than what we paid for them.

"What we're doing is investing in vehicles that will have value to the taxpayer in an attempt to free up credit so that working Americans can get their paycheck and can survive in this economy and enjoy the quality of lifestyle and prosperity that we have had historically had," he said.

It "will provide some critical life support for the US financial system," said Brian Bethune, an economist at the research firm Global Insight.

But some analysts remained skeptical about the deal -- whether it would work or create new problems for markets and the economy.

"If you impose too much regulation, too much supervision, too much management and too much cost, you damage the franchise and profit outlook for banks," said David Kotok, chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors.

US officials were spurred to act as a series of banks and financial institutions collapsed, triggering fears of a global economic meltdown and sparking a credit squeeze,

White House hopefuls Republican John McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama reluctantly hailed the progress that had been made, both claiming that demands they had made had been incorporated into the new bill.

Mustangman