Combative Obama Attacks GOP

As expected, Barack Obama rolled out a $50 billion infrastructure program designed to create jobs at a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee—and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans. "These guys refuse to give up on the economic philosophy they peddled for most of the last decade: You cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; you cut rules for special interests ... Well, that philosophy didn't work out so well. All it did was rack up record deficits and result in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

Casual in brown slacks and open-collar white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, Obama took a populist tack in his speech, mixing attacks on Republicans with praise for working-class and middle-class Americans. He said he'd "keep fighting, every single day, every single hour, every single minute to turn this economy around." He said interest groups he has battled "talk about me like a dog." GOP leaders instantly assailed Obama's proposal: Mitch McConnell said the plan "should be met with justifiable skepticism." John Boehner added, "We need to end Washington Democrats' out-of-control spending spree." Administration officials said that even if Congress quickly approved the program, it would not produce jobs until sometime next year. (More infrastructure stories.)