Washington leaders have agreed on a $150 billion deal to stimulate the economy by giving workers rebates of as much as $600 or more.

But it could be late spring or even early summer before Americans see any real cash.

The goal for both Democrats and Republicans is to get the money into the hands of consumers as soon as possible.

First the Internal Revenue Service has to cut the checks. That's the tricky part.

The agency is now in the middle of the 2007 tax-filing season - not a great time to have to send special checks to 116 million people.

"It is remarkable that the world's leading economic power can't get checks out the door faster than that," Peter Corsage, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, told the Senate finance committee on Tuesday. "But it's a reflection of the fact that the IRS's infrastructure is in a state that's under pressure and consumed, again, with the normal tax-filing season."

An IRS spokesman declined to comment.

The Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, said the department and IRS are already discussing

SEATTLE (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. said Thursday its fiscal second-quarter profit topped analysts' expectations and climbed 79 percent, buoyed by rising sales of Windows-based personal computers.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, profit increased to $4.71 billion, or 50 cents per share, from $2.63 billion, or 26 cents per share last year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had forecast a profit of 46 cents per share.

Revenue rose 31 percent to $16.37 billion from $12.5 billion in the year-ago quarter, ahead of the analysts' prediction of $15.95 billion in sales.

"It looks like a very nice report, said Sarah Friar, an analyst for Goldman Sachs, in an interview. She pointed to Microsoft's improved profitability, due to better-than-expected results in two high-margin areas, software for businesses and Xbox 360s.

The quarter looked particularly good compared with the same period a year earlier, when the software maker deferred more than $1 billion in revenue due to delays in getting Windows Vista to consumers.

Microsoft's client division, responsible for Vista, posted revenue of $4.34 billion. The company said it has

Investor Urgency Builds As Market Swoons but Answer Is the Same: Don't Panic

Don't panic.

That advice could probably serve as a stand-in for "hello" at many brokerages these days. With Wall Street stumbling -- particularly since the beginning of the year -- uneasy investors are calling on financial advisers with an urgency not seen since the start of the decade.

Like last time, when the economy was reeling from the flameout of technology stocks and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, long-term investors who can resist giving in and selling out will likely emerge the strongest.

But as before, the latest stock market pullback has unnerved individual investors, many of whom are ferrying money from equities into bonds and cash. In the week ended Jan. 15, when many analysts were predicting an imminent cut in interest rates, assets in money market funds ballooned by $15.96 billion to a high of $3.17 trillion, according to iMoneyNet.

And investors pulled an estimated $18.2 billion from mutual funds last week, according to TrimTabs Investment Research. So far this year, investors have shifted about $41.4 billion out of these investments.

While those who removed money out of the market after the dismal numbers seen in recent weeks might