President Obama’s economic agenda has been knocked off course in the first six months of his second term, and he’ll try to redirect efforts starting this week, ahead of budget battles this fall, Roll Call reports. The new public relations effort, which begins with a major address Wednesday, is designed to give Obama a chance to claim credit for the improving economy and to escape Beltway scandals that have engulfed his presidency, reports The New York Times. The speeches, however, will not contain any new ideas, but merely repackage economic proposals that the president has offered for years, said senior officials on condition of anonymity. The president has watched some of his biggest economic initiatives falter since winning reelection. According to the Washington Post, the middle class — the centerpiece of Obama’s “middle-out” economic philosophy and of most of his economic speeches — continues to miss out on the fruits of growth in this recovery. Labor Department statistics show median earnings have fallen 4 percent, growth is slipping and the bulk of the new jobs created this year are part-time.