* Obama heads for Florida to rally support
* Senate holds final ballot on stimulus bill
* Geithner to unveil bank rescue strategy
By Jeff Mason and Caren Bohan
FT. MYERS, Fla., Feb 10 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday traveled to a Florida city hard hit by mortgage foreclosures to rally Americans around a huge stimulus plan he says is needed to stave off an even deeper recession.
Obama, who has increased pressure on the U.S. Congress to pass a massive spending and tax-cutting bill, will hold a campaign-style meeting around the same time as the U.S. Senate votes in Washington on the $838 billion stimulus bill.
On Monday, he held a similar event in Elkhart, Indiana, where unemployment has rocketed as the economy has fallen into the deepest recession in decades.
An hour before the Senate vote, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to unveil a highly anticipated bank rescue strategy at 11:00 a.m.
If the stimulus passes as expected, the Senate and the House of Representatives will negotiate the final shape of the legislation, with Obama arbitrating disputes. The House's version was priced at $819 billion.
Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, appeared on several television talk shows on Tuesday to press the importance of passing the stimulus.
Asked how Obama can help negotiations between the two chambers on a final bill, Gibbs told NBC's "Today Show": "The president is willing to do whatever it takes, with Democrats or Republicans to make sure that he gets something on his desk quickly that gets help to the hands of the American people."
The package is an important milestone for the new president, a Democrat, who wants a finished product on his desk by Feb. 16. His roadshow this week aims to illustrate the importance of its job creation measures for average Americans.
Obama says the bill is crucial to avoid economic catastrophe.
'TOO MUCH SPENDING'
Republicans complain it has too many spending projects and not enough tax cuts. The House version passed with no Republican support, while the Senate version has drawn only three Republican votes.
But Obama showed little patience for mainstream Republican arguments, emphasizing in a news conference on Monday night that Republicans who controlled the White House and Congress oversaw rocketing U.S. debt and the onset of recession.
"It's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they've presided over a doubling of the national debt," Obama said.
"I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility."
Obama chose to go to Ft. Myers partly because it had the country's highest foreclosure rate last year, with 12 percent of housing units receiving a foreclosure-related notice.
Unemployment in the area was 10 percent in December -- more than triple the rate two years ago, the White House said.
"We can't get our economy moving again if 2, 3, 5 or 10 million homes are being foreclosed on. You'll see that as a big effort of this administration," Gibbs told CNN. (additional reporting by Deborah Charles, editing by Alan Elsner)