Despite his clear electoral mandate and big Democratic majorities in Congress, politics is already blocking Barack Obama's efforts to deliver a fast fiscal stimulus. The country's political system was designed to force debate and delay action, and it works. Even when all of Washington agrees that speed is crucial - which it does - getting anything done is still difficult. Mr Obama has clout and his party is pretty much in control. But these factors are confounded by the sheer scale and complication of the stimulus plan.

Some of Mr Obama's team dared to hope that a stimulus bill would be on the president's desk awaiting his signature by the time of his inauguration on January 20. The new target is the President's Day recess on February 13, and Democrats in Congress no less than Republicans are warning that this will be hard to achieve. The American recovery and reinvestment plan will not move forward in one piece but will be written bit by bit in committee. House and Senate versions will have to be reconciled, more changes made and further votes taken. "Congress must work its will," says Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House.

There is fundamental disagreement about strategy, too. In large part, this is the familiar Democratic-Republican divide over spending increases or tax cuts, Democrats preferring the former and Republicans the latter. Mr Obama is proposing a sensible compromise: an $800bn (€594bn, £527bn) two-year package, split roughly 60:40 in favour of spending increases.

Many Democrats resent the concession to Republican preferences. Many Republicans want the tax cuts to be permanent; others, having acquiesced for years in the fiscal incontinence of the Bush administration, have decided on the downslope of a severe recession to become fiscal conservatives. read more