With less than two months until the November elections, the White House is seriously weighing a package of business tax breaks - potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars - to spur hiring and combat Republican charges that Democratic tax policies hurt small businesses, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.
Among the options under consideration are a temporary payroll tax holiday and a permanent extension of the now-expired research and development tax credit, which rewards companies that conduct research into new technologies within the United States.
Administration officials have struggled to develop new economic policies and an effective message to blunt expected Republican gains in Congress and defuse complaints from Democrats that President Obama is fumbling the issue most important to voters. After weeks of vacation and foreign policy, White House advisers have arranged a series of economic events for Obama next week, including two trips to swing states and a press conference.
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With the unemployment rate expected to rise again in new jobs numbers due out Friday, panic is setting in among many Democratic candidates who fear it is too late for Obama to persuade voters that he understands the depth of the nation's economic woes and can fix them.
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In November, Obama announced he would turn his attention to unemployment, calling it "one of the great challenges that remains in our economy." He declared the same intent two months later, telling House Democrats he would focus relentlessly on job creation "over the next several months." Senior aides went on television pledging the mantra would become "jobs, jobs, jobs."
But other matters - health care, the BP oil spill - continually stole the limelight, creating the impression, some Democrats complain, that the president was barely focused on the economy at all.
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"We did the mosque, Katrina, Iraq, and now Middle East peace?" said a Democratic strategist who works closely with multiple candidates and spoke on the condition of anonymity. "And in between you redo the Oval Office? It has become a joke."
