Obama blasts GOP on economy: ‘Their ideas are bad’

President Obama on Thursday harangued Republicans for their economic vision, arguing that their policies are outdated and will leave the middle class behind amid a strengthening recovery. 

Coming off a string of legal and legislative victories, Obama sharply contrasted his economic plans with those of the GOP presidential field and congressional Republicans during remarks in LaCrosse, Wis.

He roundly criticized Republicans for trying to sell the same “trickle-down” policies that he said brought the economy to the brink of collapse in 2008. 

{mosads}“They are good people but their ideas are bad,” he told a packed gym during remarks in LaCrosse, Wis. 

He took a jab at the growing field of Republican presidential candidates — suggesting there may be enough players now for an actual “Hunger Games” — and warning that there are going to be plenty of false claims about how the country hasn’t made any progress.

“They will be making a whole bunch of stuff up,” Obama said. “When I say a lot of stuff, I mean a lot.”

Obama painted a picture in which Democrats were sincere in their desire to improve the financial standing of most Americans whereas Republicans only sought to provide tax breaks to wealthier earners and repeal his healthcare reform law. 

“We were talking about the middle class before it was cool, before it was trendy, before the polls said to talk about,” Obama said. 

The GOP has long criticized Obama and Democrats for what it sees as a propensity to impose excessive regulations, and a broader tendency to prioritize labor and other concerns over policies that would help businesses and stimulate job growth.

Republicans will likely also continue to target the Affordable Care Act, which they see as misguided government intervention on a grand scale. Most polls continue to show that more Americans oppose than support the law.  

Still, Obama touted Democratic economic policies that he argued had produced a record streak private-sector jobs growth — 12.8 million over 64 straight months — doubled the stock market’s value and improved the nation’s fiscal situation. 

“That’s good but we’ve got more work to do,” Obama said. “We’ve got to get folks wages and incomes to keep going up. We’ve got to make sure folks think their hard work is getting them somewhere.”

He noted that the expansion arrived despite Republican’s dire predictions that Democrats were going to kill jobs, crash the economy and explode the deficit. 

He also appeared to invoke the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage as an example of how the United States can overcome once-bitter divides.

“The last seven years, shoot, the last seven days has shown there’s nothing America cannot do, no challenge we can’t solve,” he said. 

“There’s nothing we can’t do.”