Washington —- The House approved far-reaching government assistance Wednesday for the nation's housing market, including broad authority for the Treasury Department to protect the nation's two largest mortgage finance companies from collapse. The measure also includes an aggressive plan to help hundreds of thousands of troubled borrowers avoid foreclosure by refinancing their mortgages.

The White House, citing an urgent need to restore market confidence in the two mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said President Bush would sign the measure despite his opposition to the inclusion of $4 billion in grants for local governments to buy and refurbish foreclosed properties.

Bush's support assures that the bill will become law after final passage by the Senate, possibly on Friday or Saturday. The House approved the bill by a vote of 272-152, with just 45 Republicans —- none of them from Georgia's delegation —- joining 227 Democrats in favor of it.

Republicans said they would not support a bill that puts taxpayer money at risk while potentially bailing out irresponsible borrowers and greedy lenders.

Experts described the legislation as a landmark shift in the government's role in the housing market, extending a generous helping hand both to Wall Street and Main Street. They said it would rank in importance with the creation of the Home Owners' Loan Corp. as part of the New Deal to prevent foreclosures in the 1930s and the legislation in 1989 responding to the savings and loan crisis.

"We are at a time of considerable turmoil in the private financial markets, and that is a traditional time when government support is needed and called upon," said Alex J. Pollock, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a primary author of the legislation, said troubled homeowners might get relief within days of Bush signing the bill because lenders have long known details of the legislation and could move quickly to help borrowers refinance.

"Many of these institutions know this is coming," he said. "I hope they will be able to take advantage of it right away."

But the legislation, much of which has been debated and fretted over on Capitol Hill for months, also leaves numerous questions unanswered. The biggest unknown is whether the measure will be adequate to slow the downward spiral of home prices and help the economy recover from what many analysts now expect to be a prolonged slowdown.

Perhaps most significantly, the legislation hardens the government's long-implicit assurance that it would step in to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants who together own or guarantee about $5.2 trillion of the nation's $12 trillion in mortgages.

To accommodate a potential bailout, the bill raises the national debt limit to $10.6 trillion, an increase of $800 billion.

The Treasury Department has said it hopes never to use the authority to spend unlimited taxpayer funds —- perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars —- to maintain the solvency of the mortgage giants because they are in sound financial condition. Still, shares in the two companies rose sharply Wednesday in a sign of the market's positive view of having a federal rescue plan in place.

The independent Congressional Budget Office said the rescue plan for the mortgage companies should appear on the federal budget as a $25 billion charge in fiscal years 2009 and 2010, but officials conceded that was only an estimate.

The budget office said the chances were better than even that a rescue would not be needed before the Treasury Department's authority to orchestrate a bailout ends at the end of 2009, and the cost to taxpayers would be nothing.

The package also includes long-awaited legislation to tighten the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by creating an independent agency to oversee them. The new regulator will have the authority to increase the capital requirements, the amount of money that companies must maintain to insulate against losses, and will also have authority over executive pay at the two mortgage giants.

Bush has long supported tighter regulation of the mortgage giants. But until Wednesday he had voiced strong objections to a $3.9 billion provision in the bill that would give grants for local governments to purchase and refurbish foreclosed properties —- a provision that the White House regards as a bailout.

Bush set aside those objections on the advice of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who told Bush the overall package was necessary to help stabilize the troubled housing and credit markets, White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

She said the gravity of the crisis, and the tight congressional schedule resulting from the coming summer recess, left no other option.

WHAT IT MEANS

> Homeowners at risk of foreclosure could be eligible for refinancing, tax breaks, counseling and legal assistance.

> Limits on risk and size of mortgages backed by government-chartered, stockholder-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be increased, along with oversight and government financial assistance for those firms.

> Billions of dollars would be made available for buying and renovating foreclosed homes.

WHAT BILL WOULD DO

> Give the Federal Housing Administration $300 billion in new lending authority and relax standards to provide affordable, fixed-rate mortgages to debt-ridden homeowners. Any losses would be covered by an affordable housing fund financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that finance mortgages.

> Allow the Treasury Department temporary authority to lend money to Fannie and Freddie or buy their stock to avert a collapse of the mortgage giants.

> Create a new regulator and tighten controls on Fannie and Freddie.

> Raise the limit on the loans they may buy —- set to revert to $417,000 by the end of the year —- to $625,000 in the highest-cost areas. At the same time. FHA would see a matching increase in the size of loans it may insure.

> Provide $3.9 billion in grants to the hardest-hit communities for buying and fixing up foreclosed properties.

> Provide $15 billion in housing tax breaks, including for low-income housing. Give a credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home buyers who purchase residences between April 9, 2008, and July 1, 2009. Allow people who don't itemize their taxes to claim a $500-$1,000 deduction on their 2008 property taxes.

> Give states an additional $11 billion in tax-free municipal bond authority for low-interest loans to first-time home buyers, construction of low-income rental housing and refinancing subprime mortgages.

> Offer protection from investor lawsuits for mortgage holders that modify loans to borrowers who are in default or about to default.

> Provide $180 million for pre-foreclosure counseling and legal services for distressed borrowers.

—- Associated Press

HOW THE GEORGIA HOUSE DELEGATION VOTED

NO: Republicans —- Paul Broun (Athens); Nathan Deal (Hall County); Phil Gingrey (Marietta); Jack Kingston (Savannah); John Linder (Duluth); Tom Price (Roswell); Lynn Westmoreland (Coweta County).

YES: Democrats —- John Barrow (Savannah); Hank Johnson (DeKalb County); John Lewis (Atlanta); Jim Marshall (Macon); David Scott (Atlanta).

> Not voting: Democrat Sanford Bishop (Albany).

53%: increase in number of foreclosures this June over June 2007

252,363: Homes nationwide receiving foreclosure notices in June

400,000: Number of foreclosures the bill's supporters say it could help prevent

"The president would not have signed this bill if we had a lot of extra time on our hands. We don't."

—- White House spokeswoman Dana Perino