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Republicans have branded Mr Obama’s previous stimulus a failure and have little vested interest in passing anything that helps him get re-elected. However, their calculus may be shifting. Congress’ approval ratings have fallen further than Mr Obama’s. Republicans paid a price for dragging the country to the brink of default in August in an effort to force Mr Obama to accept bigger spending cuts. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found voters blame Republicans more than Mr Obama for Standard & Poor’s subsequent decision to downgrade the country’s credit rating. This means they cannot afford to appear obstructionist, and indeed in recent days have begun sounding more conciliatory, promising to seek common ground with Mr Obama. John Boehner, speaker in the House of Representatives, politely said that Mr Obama’s ideas “merit consideration”.

This, however, is a far cry from support. The most contentious element may be how to pay for the plan. Mr Obama promises it will not add to the deficit. Rather than specify offsetting spending cuts or tax increases, though, he proposed that Congress’s “super committee”, created under last month’s debt ceiling deal, come up with the money. Under that deal, a bipartisan committee has until November 23rd to find up to $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions over the coming decade to add to the roughly $900 billion in spending cuts already enacted under the debt deal. Congress then has until December 23rd to pass them. If they fail, then automatic spending cuts of $1.2 trillion kick in. Mr Obama proposed amending the deal to increase both the committee’s target and the automatic triggers by the same amount as the stimulus.

The committee’s task of finding common ground among its Democratic and Republican members is hard enough. After its first meeting, the morning before Mr Obama’s speech, John Kyl, a Republican senator, threatened to quit if defence spending were touched. Jeb Hensarling, the panel’s Republican co-chairman, said Mr Obama's plan makes the “already arduous challenge of finding bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction nearly impossible”.

Most likely, Republicans will cherry pick and pass the parts they like, such as free-trade deals. Administration officials put the odds of passing the proposed tax cuts at better than 50% but are less confident on the spending provisions.

Mr Obama said that he will send more comprehensive ideas on tax and entitlement reform, including tweaks to Medicare, to the super committee in coming days. They will produce, he said, a primary budget surplus (that is, excluding interest payments). That’s not as ambitious as it sounds: his latest budget already envisions a primary surplus by 2017. That, of course, relies on the scheduled expiration of tax cuts on the rich and elimination of some corporate tax breaks, which Republicans seem likely to reject. Mr Obama reiterated his intent to press for higher taxes, averring, “This is not class warfare, this is simple math.” He was met by disbelieving murmurs. Nonetheless, the super committee may be the last chance before 2013 for Mr Obama and Republicans to reach some kind of grand bargain that cuts the deficit by reforming both taxes and entitlements. The panel’s proposal can’t be amended or filibustered in the senate, so it is uniquely suited for something so ambitious and contentious.

Throughout his speech Mr Obama tried to impress a sense of urgency upon his listeners. “Some of you have decided that our differences are so great that we can only resolve them at the ballot box. But the next election is 14 months away. The people who sent us here … don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months.” But the odds that Mr Obama and Republicans can overcome their gaping differences in less than three months seem long indeed.

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