RALEIGH — Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut said the stimulus package making its way through Congress was a necessary step toward an economic recovery.

"It's not perfect," Dodd told more than 1,000 people at the Emerging Issues forum in downtown Raleigh. "It's not pretty. But history would indict us is we did nothing."

Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the stimulus package alone would not turn around the economy, Rob Christensen reports.

"I think realistically, it can stop it from getting worse," Dodd said.

He said every member of Congress would have designed the stimulus package differently. He would have preferred putting more money into mass transit.

More after the jump.

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Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole said Friday that any bailout plan must include "significant" tax credits for home buyers.

She also wants several other details in the bailout proposal that members of Congress are trying to develop today with the Bush administration, Barb Barrett reports.

Dole, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said she wants:

* a report from the Treasury Department on the federal government’s future role in the mortgage market
* a plan that ends what she calls the “private reward, public loss” within the mortgage system
* details about how the government would price problem assets
* fixing problems such as declining home values, solvency of financial institutions and liquidity of the marketplace, and
* reforming the entire regulatory structure.

Dole said she opposes the administration’s proposal that came out last weekend.

But, she said, "inaction is not an option. We must swiftly act so that responsible citizens do not pay for the folly of fat cats on Wall Street."