Obama contends GOP ’sat on the sidelines’ while he tried to fix the economy

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Obama challenges Republicans to help on economy

WASHINGTON — Striking a partisan tone, President Barack Obama said Wednesday he is working to rebuild the economy without much help from Republicans, saying they have mostly “sat on the sidelines and shouted from the bleachers.”

The White House released excerpts of Obama’s speech while he was en route to a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in western Pennsylvania. In his remarks, the president aggressively sought to cast Republicans as a party that fought him on tax cuts for small businesses, tax credits for college tuition, new spending on clean energy and more.

The timing comes as Obama, juggling the oil-spill disaster in the Gulf and mounting foreign crises, tried to assure the country that he is also working on the people’s chief concern — the economy. The president’s political speech also underscores the importance of the upcoming midterm elections, in which the outcome of House and Senate races could shape Obama’s ability to enact his agenda for the rest of his term.

“We already know where their ideas led us,” Obama said of Republicans. “And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future. We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward.”

Obama said that as the election approaches, he expects Republicans to make the same economic argument they have for decades. He described that as giving tax cut to millionaires “who didn’t need them,” gutting regulations and putting industry insiders in charge of oversight, as well as shortchanging investment in research.

“To be fair, a good deal of the other party’s opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about government,” Obama said. “It’s a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges.”

He added: “It’s an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations.”