WH lays down jobs speech as challenge to GOP

President Obama's chief of staff, Bill Daley, suggested on CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday that the White House will pin a sagging economy on House Republicans if they don't approve jobs proposals Mr. Obama will announce during a primetime joint session of Congress.

Mr. Obama will propose several hundred billion dollars of projects in his address, but not refer to them as a stimulus, setting the stage to blame Republicans if they don't act, CBS News correspondent Bill Plante reports.

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Speaking from the White House, Daley told "Early Show" anchor Erica Hill that "it's time for action, not just rhetoric."

"If the Congress doesn't want to act, and the Congress wants to just continue, especially the majority in the House, if they just want to continue saying no to everything and have political theater and worry about the election next year and stop the economy today in anticipation of an election 14 months [from now], that's not why the American people sent them to this town," Daley told Hill. "They sent them to this town, as they sent the president, to get up every day and try to accomplish something, not just talk."

Mr. Obama's proposals will include an extension of payroll tax cuts for employees totaling about $120 billion and jobless benefits of about $50 billion as well as rebuilding projects for schools, roads and bridges that will cost $100 billion, Plante reports.

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Another package costing more than $100 billion includes payroll tax relief for employers, aid to state and local governments to hire teachers and first responders, a tax credit to businesses for new hires and for hiring returning veterans, mortgage refinancing and job training, Plante reports.

Hill asked Daley for his reaction to a statement former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said during a Republican debate Wednesday night that the president "doesn't have a clue how to get this country going again."

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"You're buying into a lot of political rhetoric that's going down in debates right now," Daley told Hill. "The American people will get specifics, and it will be a plan that will be paid for, that, if enacted, will create jobs and will cause economic growth."