WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is pledging to do whatever it takes to battle a severe financial crisis that is threatening to push the country into a steep recession.

But even with the aggressive steps the government has already taken, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says it will take time before things get turned around.

"Clearly, we're going to have a number of difficult months ahead of us in terms of the real economy," he said Tuesday on "The Charlie Rose Show."

Asian markets veered sharply lower today, with Tokyo's Nikkei index tumbling 6.79 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 6.2 percent, while South Korea's main index shed 5.1 percent. European markets also opened lower.

A week after Paulson announced the administration would spend $250 billion to buy stakes in U.S. banks, the Federal Reserve stepped up Tuesday with a new program to help money market mutual funds that have been squeezed by worried investors demanding to cash out their holdings.

The Fed said it would provide up to $540 billion in financing though a program run by JPMorgan Chase & Co. to purchase from mutual funds certificates of deposit, bank notes and commercial paper. The program, to be called the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, is designed to revive the market for commercial paper, short-term loans that are critical for keeping businesses running.

"If these money markets are not working properly, then the economy is significantly threatened because this is where businesses get their short-term financing for their day-to-day operations," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

Money market funds hold about one-third of all commercial paper and Fed officials said that about $500 billion had flowed out of prime money market funds since August as investors became increasingly worried about their ability to redeem shares. On Sept. 18, the Treasury Department announced that it was tapping a $50 billion Treasury fund to provide guarantees for the assets in the money market accounts.

The Fed on Monday will begin making direct purchases of commercial paper to bolster this market.

The Treasury Department also announced it had selected two major accounting firms to help manage the government's $700 billion rescue program passed by Congress on Oct. 3.

The program to buy distressed assets from banks is expected to spend $100 billion initially, while Paulson announced last week that another $250 billion would be committed to buying stock in banks as a way of shoring up their capital reserves so that they will resume more normal lending operations.