The Hill News

The Obama White House kept mixing it up late this week with House GOP leader John Boehner (Ohio), needling him as "confused" by the administration's initial attack on his position on the stimulus bill.

Jared Bernstein, the chief economic adviser to Vice President Biden, took again to the official White House blog to respond to Boehner, who demanded an explanation on behalf of his constituents of an initial blog posting Bernstein had written on Wednesday accusing the top House Republican of "want[ing] a lot of peo! ple to lose their jobs."

Boehner's office shot back quickly on Thursday night, accusing the White House of ignoring the needs of small businesses and pursuing growth-stifling economic policies.

Bernstein posted his new salvo after Boehner had demanded of Bernstein "an explanation of how raising taxes on small businesses will do anything but further hinder job creation in Ohio and across the country.”

Bernstein responded Boehner on Thursday evening in another blog posting in defense of President Obama's signature $787 billion stimulus, which Boehner and other Republicans have steadfastly opposed.

The top economic official said that House Republicans, led by Boehner, had failed to seize a number of opportunity to spur job growth by way of supporting the stimulus and! other Democratic-backed measures over the past year and a hal! f.

"President Obama has consistently worked with anyone who would join him to help small businesses lead this economy back to health," Bernstein wrote. "But in virtually every case, House Republicans led by Rep. Boehner have opposed our attempts, while Republican Leaders in the Senate have used procedural gimmicks to keep them from even coming up for a vote."

Boehner's office quickly responded.

"President Obama and Mr. Bernstein want to raise taxes on half of small business income in America," Boehner's office blogged in response. "It’s time for Mr. Bernstein to go back to the drawing board (though hopefully not the same one that produced the report he co-authored showing that the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ would keep unemployment below eight percent.)"

The new blog posting demarcates part of a sustained effort ag! ainst Republicans in the second half of this week, launched from the platform of the White House blog. In addition to Bernstein's two posts, White House Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki launched an attack on Thursday of having "out of whack" economic policies.

Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told The Hill on Thursday that while there was no specific offensive the White House had organized this week, the White House blog "serves! many communications purposes, including periodically engaging! in the debate over the President’s agenda and the direction of the country."

Bernstein also seemingly linked his latest post to Democrats' election year messaging, warning that putting GOP leaders like Boehner into power would mark a return to some of the policies that Republicans had pursued when they last controlled Congress.

"So, collecting his positions over the past couple of days, Rep. Boehner wants to: a) end the Recovery Act that has put more than 100,000 Ohioans to work, b) add $37 billion to the deficit by cutting taxes of the wealthiest households, and c) block tax cuts and new lines of credit to middle-class, small businesses," he said. "It all sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?  That’s because it’s precisely the policy prescription that got us into this mess.  And it’s the last place we want to go back to."