WRAPUP 2-Senate nears vote on huge U.S. stimulus

* Senate leader expects bill will pass

* Senate moderates near less expensive compromise

* Senate Democrats expect vote on Thursday

* Obama warns crisis could be irreversible

WASHINGTON, Feb 5 - U.S. senators working to craft a massive U.S. economic stimulus package said on Thursday they had agreed it should be close to the $800 billion wanted by President Barack Obama, and Senate leader Harry Reid said he believed he had the votes to pass it.

Moderate Democratic and Republican senators, seeking to bolster support for a compromise, agreed to cut the package from some $900 billion after pressure from Republicans who said it was too high and included non-essential projects.

Reid told reporters he expected a full Senate vote on the measure later in the day and that it would pass. "We hope to have the vote today," he said. "Do we have the votes? We believe we do. We believe we can find two Republicans of good will."

The group of about a dozen moderate lawmakers had trimmed the package of spending cuts and tax relief aimed at combating the worsening U.S economic downturn.

Leaders of the Democratic-led Senate hope they can win support from at least two Republican votes needed to reach the 60-vote mark which would preclude any Republican procedural roadblocks, aides said.

"I think we all respect the president's number," Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana told reporters after a closed-door meeting with more than a dozen colleagues from both parties.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said Obama, in a meeting with her on Wednesday, had persuaded her that the ultimate bill should be "in the neighborhood of $800 billion."

"The president did convince me," she said, adding that she believed the two sides would reach a compromise on the Senate stimulus package on Thursday.

Collins said she could not support the $819 billion version of the measure passed last week by the Democratic-led House of Representatives without any Republican support.

Obama kept up pressure to pass the stimulus, saying the United States faced a potentially irreversible economic crisis if legislators fail to act quickly or strongly enough.

"Each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes," he said in an op-ed column in Thursday's Washington Post.

"And, if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years .... our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."

Obama has set a Feb. 16 deadline for a final stimulus plan to reach his desk. Facing a swirl of opposing views on what it should contain, he has taken his case direct to the public with a series of television interviews and the Post op-ed. (Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland)