According to the Wall Street Journal’s Saturday reports, the economic stimulus being planned by President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team, to boost the recession-hit US economy, could be far larger than previous estimates and might reach $1 trillion over two years. Two weeks back, a two-year, half-trillion-dollar plan was under consideration.

Though Obama is expected to be briefed on the broad parameters of the plan next week, he has said the package will include an initial tax cut and a massive infusion of funds for roads, bridges, water systems, school repair, spreading broadband access, promoting health-care information technology, improving energy efficiency in buildings, renewable-energy projects, and assisting struggling state and local governments.

Obama aides hope that the Congress would pass the bill by the time Obama takes office on January 20. The Bush administration has been given authority by Congress to spend up to $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue the nation’s banking system.

Christina Romer, who will lead Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, is also surveying economists, trying to build political consensus around a larger number before it is presented to Congress in early January.

Economists have previously said they expect Obama to quickly sign a multi-year spending package that could be worth up to $750 billion, or almost 5 percent of US gross domestic product. However, the general sense among economists, being canvassed by the Obama team, is that “every day there’s a new bad number. And people’s sense of what the appropriate stimulus is rises” with the news.