President Obama has a problem, and it's not (necessarily), the Republicans. The policy precedent for our nation has always been for the government to step in a bail out the economy when things go bad. It happened on a massive scale during the Great Depression, with the federal government inventing programs to create jobs that would put people back to work. This latest recession saw less job creation, and more structural bailout, with large banks and businesses getting financed by taxpayers to begin lending credit (which they didn't) and to begin creating jobs (which hasn't happened enough). Now, with austerity cuts on the board and everyone worked up about the federal debt, the government is no longer in a position to make those kinds of bailouts. That aside, Obama has decided to push for another government stimulus, this one geared toward middle-class workers no white collar executives. He's also going to appease the fiscal hawks by advocating for simultaneous spending cuts, and satiate the progressives by advocating for tax revenue increases for corporations and the wealthy.

The new government stimulus that Obama is proposing would involve largely tax incentives (rather than simply cutting a check to American people as Bush did in 2008) for both the private and public sectors. Tax incentives would be for those companies that hire a certain number of workers within the next fiscal year, as well as for Americans that purchase some of the homes from the country's horribly over-burdened foreclosed properties.  In addition, Obama may decide to create federal programs to help struggling homeowners and other troubled-asset holders through executive action. To some degree, the federal prosecutors investigating bank fraud in the foreclosure process secured a promise from many of the largest home loan providers in the country to provide interest-rate reductions or other assistance to struggling homeowners. Of course, how likely is an investment bank likely to keep a simple promise? Furthermore, Obama wants to create more federal roads and infrastructure projects and implement greater federal protections for the long-term unemployed. This according to The Washington Post Financial.

The President again appealed to federal and state lawmakers for conciliation and bipartisanship in a message today while he vacations at Martha's Vineyard with his family. He recorded the message while on his 3-day economy-targeted bus tour earlier this week. As reported in the Huffington Post this morning, Obama criticized lawmakers for not relenting on partisan politics to do what is "common sense" work like cutting payroll taxes and creating road construction bills that help people immediately. "The only thing holding them back is politics. The only thing preventing us from passing these bills is the refusal by some in Congress to put country ahead of party. That's the problem right now. That's what's holding this country back. That's what we have to change."

One problem that Obama is going to face, however, is that what he's saying right now is very similar to what he laid out in 2009, with the added provision of spending cuts to many programs that struggling middle-class individuals and the unemployed depend on. Yet here we are in 2011, still over 9% of us unemployed, and looking at a possible second recession. In fact, he's putting pressure on the super-congress to cut more than their $1.5 trillion to federal spending, and to do it well before the Thanksgiving deadline. Of course, he's also advocating for them to raise revenues, and House and Senate Democrats have positioned several members that are likely to push for closing corporate loopholes and raising taxes on wealthy earners.

It remains to be seen how differently Obama's new jobs creation plan will be laid out, though he's no doubt counting on a favorable deal form the super-committee, as well as some public pushback on Tea Party politics. A ringing endorsement of this fact is in Wisconsin, where recall elections replaced all six Republicans with Democratic lawmakers. Nonetheless, we'll need to wait for Obama's after-Labor Day speech where he's expected to lay out his new jobs plan and to articulate some new national direction in the presently foggy political landscape.