What comes next? This isn't an presidential election year, so a new shooting war isn't going to save congress.
One sensible thing to be doing is to cut back on all government spending, especially social spending. That's not going to be popular at all. Cutting social spending without reducing taxes at the same time (which is unlikely with Obama wielding a veto pen) isn't going to stimulate the economy overmuch.
Presuming a Republican takeover of Congress in November, what could they possibly do to start us back on a road to recovery? My thinking is something like "decimation".
On the first day of next year's session, the first topic should be a 10% reduction in congressional pay and a 10% reduction in congressional staff (picking a round number, but maybe they could also liken it to the official unemployment rate). Acknowledge that the last two years haven't worked out too well and that Congress should shoulder some of the blame.
The second act ought to be immediately placing themselves along with all other government employees who were exempted by loopholes into Obamacare. That's fraught with danger if there is a way to pretend to attempt to do it, fail, then shrug it off with a "we tried ...".
Where do we go from here?
Well, you have the best ideas so far. I didn’t realize the complexity that lies ahead very well until reading your post. I know that people have said that Obama wants a repub congress so he can blame his failures on them. Based on the limitations you mentioned - I suspect that is a workable strategy. I was dreamin’ big - like repeal Obamacare. The Repubs wanted to re-purpose ‘unused stimulus funds’ to pay for unemployment extensions and the Dems turned ‘em down. I would say let’s see if we can make unused stimulus funds actually count for something - probably not the roadwork Obama suggested for a new stimulus. I dunno but good question and you certainly got me thinking in that direction. :)