Barack Obama is busy fleshing out his 2012 re-election message. America needs to create jobs, the president has been telling voters in the swing states of North Carolina and Virginia on a campaign-style tour this week. But the mostly Republican “do nothing” Congress would prefer to look after its friends on Wall Street.

The script is sorting itself out nicely. Having failed to overcome the 60-vote hurdle to end a Senate filibuster, Mr Obama watched his $450bn jobs bill grind to a halt last week. Partly at the behest of the Republican leadership, which dismissed his plan as a “second stimulus”, the White House broke it up into “bite-sized chunks”. Not that this is likely to make much difference.

The first of these is a $35bn aid package to states to keep teachers and emergency workers from being laid off, which the Senate could vote on by the end of this week. It would be funded by a 0.5 per cent surcharge on annual incomes of more than $1m. Who could disagree with that? The answer is the entire Republican caucus and a handful of Democratic centrists nervous of being associated with new public spending.