The story

Congressional leaders said Friday that they were determined to quickly pass a massive plan to stabilize the financial market after they heard a "sobering" assessment from the administration's economic team.

"I've never been in a more sobering moment in my 28 years with the language used, careful language used by the financial leaders of this administration, of this country," Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut said Friday while describing a meeting Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox had with the congressional leadership Thursday night.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said that when he heard what might happen to the economy if Congress failed to act, "I gulped."

The Treasury Department was expected Friday afternoon to send the proposal to allow a federal trust to buy bad mortgage assets from banks at a discount. Paulson said the federal government would have to commit "hundreds of billions" of dollars to the trust to solve the credit crisis that is undermining the economy. Watch Paulson say billions will be needed

Rep. Barney Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the bipartisan leadership agreed that the government must buy the "illiquid" assets "because the consequence of not doing so are so bad." Read full article »

CNN's Ted Barrett, Deirdre Walsh, Lesa Jansen and Scott J. Anderson contributed to this report.

All About U.S. Department of the Treasury • Christopher Dodd • U.S. Federal Reserve