COLMAR, Pennsylvania, Sept 9 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Thursday defended his economic record in voter-rich Pennsylvania in an effort to overcome Democratic challenger John Kerry's advantage on a topic Americans consider crucial to the election.
"We're making steady progress for the American workers," Bush said at a factory that makes Christmas figurines, as he seeks a second four-year term in the November 2 election.
As he campaigned in this state of 12 million people, he said that his 1.7-trillion-dollar tax cuts have helped revive the US economy.
Pennsylvania has 21 electoral college votes, which go to the candidate who wins the state's popular vote. US presidential candidates must win the most electoral college votes from each state to capture the election.
In 2000, then vice president Al Gore, a Democrat, beat Bush by 50.6 percent to 46.4 percent in this industrial state.
But the Bush campaign has not given up on Pennsylvania. The county where Colmar is located has an unemployment rate of less than four percent, compared with 5.4 percent nationally.
"Our country has now seen 12 straight months of job growth," Bush said, adding that this year's unemployment rate is inferior to those of 1979, 1980 and 1990.
Democrats accuse the Republican president of losing some 1.6 million jobs since he took office in January 2001, adding that he is the first US leader since president Herbert Hoover, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, to have presided over a net loss of jobs.
Opinion polls have placed the economy among the top issues that concern Americans and have given Kerry an edge over Bush on who can better handle the economy, although one recent poll gave Bush the lead.
In Colmar, Bush was briefly interrupted by Kerry supporters, who were quickly taken out of the room to the accompaniment of boos from the audience.
Bush repeated his vow to simplify the country's tax code during a second term in office and took a shot at Kerry's economic proposals.
Kerry says he would cancel the tax cuts for those earning more than 200,000 dollars (180,000 euros) per year but preserve everyone else's tax cuts.
"Guess who will wind up paying the bill" for Kerry's plan, Bush said as the audience roared with laughter.
"America will reject the hidden Kerry tax plan," he said.