US President George W. Bush said on Saturday the US economic expansion was solid but Democrats faulted him for the loss of jobs to overseas countries a day after the monthly employment report showed tepid hiring in May. "America's economy is on the right track," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Small businesses are flourishing. Factory output is growing. And families are taking home more of what they earn."
Bush did not mention Friday's report from the Labour Department showing US employers added only 78,000 workers to their payrolls in May, the slowest job growth in nearly two years.
The figure fanned fears on Wall Street of a slowing economy. Stock prices slid nearly 1 percent.
Democrats, meanwhile, took aim at Bush's economic policies, saying he has not done enough to contain surging energy costs and has allowed US jobs to move overseas.
"American jobs moving overseas, spiralling health care costs, out of control federal budget deficits, high gas prices - all of these need our urgent attention now," Sen. Byron Dorgan, Democrat from North Dakota, said in the Democratic radio address.
"How many more American workers will lose their jobs to cheap foreign labour before we understand our current trade policy puts our standard of living in the US in a race to the bottom?" he added.
Dorgan said changes to the tax code could remove incentives for companies to send jobs abroad and blamed Bush for opposing them.
The May jobs report was not entirely weak as the Labour Department also said the unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent, its lowest since September 2001, from April's 5.2 percent as a survey of households found job growth much more robust.
In his own radio address, Bush urged lawmakers to pass some of his priorities, including a broad energy bill and the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.
CAFTA would lower barriers to US exports to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, and lock in preferential access those countries already enjoy in the US market.
It faces a tough battle in Congress because most Democrats object to it on the argument that its labour and environmental provisions are too weak, while some Republicans are concerned it would hurt domestic producers of goods like textiles and sugar.
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