WASHINGTON (AP) – A triumphant Barack Obama signed into law on Wednesday the most sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules since the Great Depression. The legislation adds safeguards for millions of consumers and aims to restrain Wall Street excesses that could set off a new recession.

The president's signing ceremony capped nearly two years of intense and partisan debate over how to avoid a recurrence of the 2008 financial meltdown that buckled the US economy and left sharp, lasting imprints on US politics and in Americans' homes.

"Because of this law, the American people will never be asked again to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes,'' Obama said.

In a heated midterm election season that has dented his public support, Obama sought to put the complex law in pocketbook terms.

Emphasizing provisions that guard borrowers from abusive lenders, he claimed it provides ``the strongest financial protections for consumers in the nation's history.''

Not everyone agreed. Republicans portrayed the bill as a burden on small banks and businesses that rely on them and argued that it will cost consumers and impede job growth. Republican Rep. Mike Pence, a member of the House of Representatives' Republican leadership group, joined House Minority Leader John Boehner in demanding that the law be repealed.

The law, passed despite almost unanimous Republican opposition, attempts to catch up to a financial system that has sped ahead of outdated regulation and slackened rules that allowed banks, traders and others to take increased risks.

Wall Street's near collapse, Obama said, "was a crisis born of a failure of responsibility from certain corners of Wall Street to the halls of power in Washington.''

The new rules, however, are only at a midpoint. Banking and market regulators will have up to two years to write many of the new regulations required by the law, extending uncertainty and ushering in a new phase of lobbying by financial firms.

"Regulators will have to be vigilant,'' Obama said.

The president sought to quell public anger over the $700 billion bank rescue fund the government created at the height of the crisis to reassure the markets. While the infusion is credited with providing stability, the public recoiled at the idea of government money being used to help prop up huge banks.