Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President-elect Joe Biden said the incoming Obama administration and members of Congress are close to an agreement on the broad principles of an economic stimulus package.

“We’re getting awful close,” Biden said in Washington before meeting with President-elect Barack Obama’s top economic advisers. “We’re all on the same page.”

Biden said a deal is nearing on both on the kind of spending and the overall cost of the package. He wouldn’t confirm reports that the plan will cost $800 billion over two years.

Before the meeting, Lawrence Summers, Obama’s top economic adviser, said the U.S. faces its worst economic slump in decades without government action to spur job growth and investment. Not since Vice President Gerald Ford replaced Richard Nixon in 1974 has a U.S. president started the job with the economy in a recession.

Earlier today, a Commerce Department report showed the U.S. economy shrank in the third quarter at a 0.5 percent annual pace, after a growth rate of 2.8 percent in the previous quarter. The figures also showed consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, declined at a revised 3.8 percent annual rate, the first drop since 1991 and the biggest since 1980.

Job Cuts

Americans may tighten their budgets further after employers cut 533,000 workers from payrolls in November, the most in three decades, and the unemployment rate jumped to 6.7 percent, the highest level since 1993.

“We’re facing a serious economic crisis,” said Summers, President Bill Clinton’s last Treasury secretary. In the Obama administration, Summers will serve as director of the White House’s National Economic Council.

Summers said the stimulus plan will have the twin goals of job creation and planning for the future with investments in infrastructure and health care among other things.

“In this crisis lies an opportunity to create the jobs that America needs, doing the work that America needs,” he said.

During a Dec. 16 meeting, Obama and his top economic advisers discussed some of the possible elements for an economic recovery plan. Projects might include funding infrastructure repair projects that have already won approval; insulating homes to save $1 billion in energy costs; modernizing health information technology; and improving technology in schools.

GE, Caterpillar

Companies such as power-generation systems maker General Electric Co. and construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. may benefit as Obama invests in infrastructure and new energy sources.

Obama’s team is working on a draft proposal as he vacations in Hawaii with his family.

Asked about the report coming later today on the Obama transition’s contacts with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich or his staff, Biden said that it will show “no inappropriate contact.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net; Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 23, 2008 11:45 EST