Los Angeles: Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton proposed $70 billion in emergency spending to stave off a possible US election-year recession, upstaging Republican rivals who clashed over the economy but offered few specifics.
The New York senator, who hopes to become the Democratic nominee in the November election, proposed $30 billion to help low-income families hit by the mortgage crisis and $40 billion in other spending, mainly for the poor and unemployed.
The former first lady, trying to build momentum after her narrow New Hampshire primary victory over Illinois Senator Barack Obama, also urged Congress to prepare an additional $40 billion in tax rebates for low- and middle-income families to be implemented if the initial stimulus fails.
Hillary released her economic proposals amid warnings that a recession is increasingly likely. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted on Thursday at ''substantive'' interest rate cuts and President George W Bush is considering his own economic stimulus package.
''I don't think we can wait. Too many people will be hurt, too many jobs will be lost, too many homes will be foreclosed on,'' Hillary said, urging the Congress to work with the president to avert a slide toward recession.
Republicans criticised the plan.
''Democrats always look to the government to give away money as the first solution,'' said Arizona Senataor John McCain, a leading presidential candidate.
Campaigning in South Carolina, McCain said the ''most immediate beneficial effect on the economy'' could be achieved by making permanent Bush administration tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2010.
A top McCain rival, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, said the government should ''take action to keep the economy from falling into a recession.'' He has called for eliminating taxes on savings for families earning $200,000 or less.
The other top Republican candidates in a complicated race that has no clear front-runner are former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
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The Republican duel
Giuliani, campaigning in Florida, ducked a question about whether the economy was in recession but said a tax cut he proposed this week would benefit middle-income Americans by an average $3,000 a year.
''That would really stimulate our economy,'' he said.
Hillary's plan, which aides said would be a one-time program paid for by government borrowing, came on a day in which McCain and Romney continued their duel over economics which began in a Republican candidates' debate in South Carolina on Thursday evening.
Neither man has offered many specifics, preferring to speak in general terms on the economic situation in Michigan and South Carolina, which hold the next state contests to nominate party candidates for the November election.
Returning to a theme of Thursday's Republican debate, McCain criticised Romney for suggesting jobs in hard-hit industries like textiles in South Carolina and car manufacturing in Michigan could return to previous levels.
''There are some jobs that left this state that aren't coming back,'' the Arizona senator told supporters at Applewood House of Pancakes in Pawley's Island, South Carolina.
''For anybody to say that they're all coming back and the textile industry is going to be restored where it was, you know better than that,'' said McCain, calling for government aid to retrain people who lose their jobs to global competition.
Romney told supporters in Warren, Michigan, ''I'm not willing to accept defeat like that.
''It is unacceptable to me to see any job go away, I will fight for every good job in Michigan and for America.''
Romney, who placed second in the nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, badly needs a victory in Michigan, the state where he was born and where his father served as governor in the 1960s. But he is trailing McCain in polls there and in South Carolina.
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