(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-04-30 09:01

WASHINGTON - President Bush, hoping to inoculate his party and his presidential legacy from election-year anger over the economy, heaped criticism on the Democratic-led Congress on Tuesday for "letting the American people down."

President Bush reacts to a question during a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington April 29, 2008. [Agencies]

He said he'd consider a summer suspension of federal gasoline taxes. But he offered no new ideas for a range of economic worries now facing the country, from record gas prices and soaring food costs to rising inflation, layoffs and home foreclosures, and a credit crunch that even has sparked fears of a college student loan squeeze.

He rejected a new economic stimulus package, saying the tax rebate checks that began going out this week from a $168 billion economic aid plan adopted in February must first be given time to work. He also rejected bipartisan suggestions that the government stop filling the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve while oil costs so much, saying it involves such a tiny amount of supply that doing so wouldn't push prices down.

Instead, the president tried to shift the focus to Congress, saying he long ago sent lawmakers proposals to deal with many of the nation's economic problems, only to see them sit or be replaced with approaches that he deems unacceptable.

"Many Americans are understandably anxious about issues affecting their pocketbook," Bush said in a White House news conference, held outdoors in an unseasonably cold and windy Rose Garden. "They're looking to their elected leaders in Congress for action. Unfortunately, on many of these issues, all they're getting is delay."

Capitol Hill's Democratic leaders said Bush was to blame for proposing policies that would worsen the problem, not help, and that it was their duty to reject them.

"His call this morning for Congress to act is disingenuous at best," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said of Bush. "Whether on energy policy, the housing crisis or our many other economic woes, this administration and its Republican allies in Congress offer nothing but the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place."

Bush's news conference, only his second expanded question-and-answer session with reporters this year, appeared to be a pre-emptive measure of sorts, as it came a day before the release of statistics on the nation's gross domestic product for January through March. The common definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of declining GDP and many expect Wednesday's report to provide the first official confirmation of a slide.

With bad news piling on bad news, the president's march to the bully pulpit wasn't just about winning policy debates with lawmakers.

The economy is shaping up to be the defining issue when voters go to the polls in November. Bush doesn't want his GOP to be the punching bag that winds up on the losing end. In an Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month, just 27 percent of the people questioned about Bush's handling of the economy said they approved -- his worst showing ever in the survey.

The president on Tuesday bent over backward to demonstrate he understands how rough things are.

He continued to resist fully embracing the term "recession" to describe the current financial picture, but came closer than he has before. He said the country is in "difficult" straits five times, that it's "tough" three times and even called the situation "sour." "Recession, slowdown -- whatever you want to call it," he said.

"You know, the words on how to define the economy don't reflect the anxiety the American people feel. You know, the average person doesn't really care what we call it," Bush said.

But hardly missing a chance in his 49-minute appearance to take a shot at Democrats, he seized on the terminology discussion for that purpose.

"These are difficult times. And the American people know it and they want to know whether or not Congress knows it," Bush said. "I believe that they're letting the American people down, is what I believe."

The high cost of energy was a major topic. An AP-Yahoo News poll this month showed people naming gasoline prices as the nation's second-highest problem, behind the economy generally.

With the average price of a gallon of gas up to $3.60 nationwide, a proposal by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to suspend federal fuel taxes for the summer driving season has gained currency. Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton has endorsed the idea, though Democratic rival Barack Obama has not. The tax is 18.4 cents on a gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents on diesel fuel.

"We'll take a look," Bush said.

But he pivoted quickly to longer-term fixes that he favors, such as opening a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration and production, and making it easier to build new oil refineries and nuclear power plants. All are longtime priorities of his that have been stymied in Congress.

"There is no magic wand to wave right now," Bush said. "It took us a while to get to this fix."

Bush also blasted Congress for failing to act on "a single one of" his ideas for addressing the housing crisis, in which rising numbers of people can't afford their mortgages or owe more on their homes than they're worth. The president has proposed a broad modernization of the Federal Housing Administration to allow some additional homeowners to refinance from subprime loans into cheaper government-backed, fixed-rate mortgages and other measures.