House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led a meeting of almost a dozen top House Democrats and about as many economists on Monday morning. She said the group coalesced around a general economic recovery package aimed at aiding states, extending unemployment insurance benefits, investing in transportation and infrastructure, and perhaps providing a new round of tax rebate checks.

“We plan to go forward expeditiously but not hastily,” Pelosi said.

The Speaker did not answer directly whether or not she will convene a lame-duck session of Congress following the Nov. 4 elections but indicated that it is a possibility.

“We will have the hearings and we’ll see what they yield,” she said. “We stand ready to take action when we are ready to do so.”

House Democrats and their economic consultants have been in direct contact with the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) over the crafting of the proposal, and are already in agreement on its overall theme: a recovery for the rest of the economy, outside of Wall Street.

“This one needs to be entirely a rescue for ordinary people, so it will benefit those, primarily the homeowners, and people who are losing their jobs or who have lost their jobs, and cities and states and towns, so they don’t have to cut spending, raise taxes, and lay off workers in a recession,” said Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine and distinguished senior fellow of the think tank Demos. “All of us in the room gave essentially variations on that same advice.”

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said House Democrats received “unified advice and counsel” from their economic advisors, who besides Kuttner included former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

“In many ways, this is the economic challenge of our lifetime,” Hoyer said. But he and Pelosi also argued that the crisis presents Congress with “tremendous opportunities.”