“We know there is not a great appetite for major new funding, but there is a real short-term crisis here,” said Charles Loveless, the legislative director of a powerful labor union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Eventually, Obama could also come under pressure from state officials and the financial industry to provide emergency aid to states and municipalities if they can’t pay off their debts…

Nicholas Johnson, a vice president for state fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says that more stimulus money would help. But with both parties now calling for cuts in federal spending, he said his top concern is that the government “avoid making things worse.”

Key elements of the Obama agenda are now at risk. In his State of the Union address and at several recent events, Obama has touted a new competitiveness agenda to create jobs. He has said that would rely on education, innovation and infrastrastructure.