Republican economic proposals 'disastrous' - Obama

US: US President Barack Obama hammered Republicans on Saturday over their newly unveiled campaign agenda, calling the opposition party's economic ideas "an echo of a disastrous decade we can't afford to relive."

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama, a Democrat, said Republican plans to roll back healthcare reform and extend Bush-era tax cuts for top US earners would not fix the nation's economic woes.

Republicans, in turn, called Obama's policies disastrous, too, and promised to address "dire" economic conditions more effectively if they take over one or both houses of Congress after the November elections. Republicans in the House of Representatives on Thursday published their agenda to create jobs, cut taxes and shrink government in anticipation of big gains in the Nov. 2 polls.

They hope it will resonate with Americans upset about near double-digit unemployment and ballooning budget deficits.

The White House has sought to paint Republican ideas as remnants from former President George W. Bush's years in office - a period which Obama's team stresses led to the dreary economic conditions it inherited at the beginning of 2009. Obama continued that critique with his appraisal of the Republicans' "Pledge to America" plan.

Obama said Republican proposals showed they were the ones not listening to voters' desires.

"And for all their talk about reining in spending and getting our deficits under control, they want to borrow another $700 billion, and use it to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires," he said. Republicans argue that extending the tax cuts would prevent what would otherwise be a tax hike in the midst of a rough economy.

Washington, Sunday, Reuters