Washington ? President Barack Obama derided an economic plan from the top House Republican as repeating job-killing policies of the past that help drive the country into recession.

In turn, House GOP leader John Boehner said the president had stooped to partisan attacks because he can’t sell his own plan at a time when millions of people want to know what happened to the jobs Obama promised to create.

Days after signing into law tougher regulations on the financial industry, Obama said Saturday that those new rules are an important part of his approach to reviving the economy.

“It took nearly a decade of failed economic policies to create this mess, and it will take years to fully repair the damage,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “But I am confident that we are finally headed in the right direction. We are moving forward. And what we can’t afford right now is to go back to the same ideas that created this mess in the first place.”