Barack Obama hinted on Friday that he was prepared to increase the size of the US emergency stimulus package and include more direct spending measures following unusually sharp criticism from Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill.

The president-elect, who has come under fire from the left in the past few days for proposing that up to 40 per cent of the planned stimulus should take the form of tax cuts, said yesterday that he would be prepared to “hone and refine” the package to take account of “new ideas”.