September 9, 2011 9:48 AM EDT
The 2012 presidential election will hinge largely on the unemployment rate in November 2012, and Republican presidential hopefuls seized on President Barack Obama's September 8 speech to attack the president's record on job creation.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry stuck to his message of low taxes and limited government by tying Obama's proposal, a $447 billion package of tax cuts and government spending on initiatives like construction jobs to repair infrastructure, to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act reviled by Republicans.
"President Obama's call for nearly a half-trillion dollars in more government stimulus when America has more than $14 trillion in debt is guided by his mistaken belief that we can spend our way to prosperity," Perry said in a statement.
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman took a similar approach, calling Obama's measures discredited and advocating his own platform of eliminating regulations, reducing taxes and encouraging free trade.
"The American people are tired of President Obama's empty rhetoric and failed policies; they're desperately searching for leadership and, above all, results," Huntsman said in a statement. "Tonight's list of regurgitated half-measures demonstrates that President Obama fundamentally doesn't understand how to turn our economy around."
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Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's campaign released an ominous advertisement entitled "960 days," implying that Obama had waited until now to try and generate jobs.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., attempted to reprise her Tea Party sanctioned response to Obama's 2011 State of the Union address with a television rebuttal in which she criticized Obama for referring to the "political circus" in Congress.
"Mr. President, what among your proposals was new?'' Bachmann said. "What here hasn't already been tried and failed before?
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