By CAROL E. LEE

President Barack Obama will use his campaign policy speech in Cleveland on Thursday to present a fresh economic argument that his team hopes will cement their efforts to frame the election as a choice between two starkly different visions for the future, not a referendum on an incumbent overseeing a still-sluggish economy.
Mr. Obama telegraphed some themes of his speech in remarks at campaign fundraisers Tuesday, aides familiar with the speech said. One aide said the crux of Mr. Obama's argument will be that the steps Republican candidate Mitt Romney wants to take aren't the types of actions that have made America great.


Zumapress.comPresident Obama addresses supporters in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

"And so the question in this election is going to be: Whose vision is more likely to create that basic bargain, to affirm that basic bargain that made America the economic superpower and the greatest country on Earth?" Mr. Obama told donors Tuesday in Philadelphia. "And that bargain says that if you work hard in this country—regardless of what you look like, where you come from, what faith you hold, who you love—that you can make it if you try."
A campaign official said Mr. Obama's speech will tie Mr. Romney to Republicans in Congress, arguing that the former Massachusetts governor would cut taxes for the wealthy and curtail regulations, while Mr. Obama would employ policies that shore up the middle class.
"This election offers the American people a chance to break the stalemate between two fundamentally different visions of how to grow the economy, create middle-class jobs and pay down the debt," the official said.
Mr. Obama has been under pressure in recent days from Democrats who want him to shift his message to focusing on the country's economic future instead of touting progress on the economy. The president's remarks at fundraisers earlier this week suggest he is likely to heed that advice.
"I am very proud of the record and what we've done in this administration during as challenging a time as we've experienced in this country's history," Mr. Obama said Tuesday night. "But this election ultimately is also going to be about where we go from here."
Mr. Romney delivered a pre-emptive rebuttal Wednesday, telling executives at the Business Roundtable to focus on what the president has done—not on what he is saying. "My own view is he will speak eloquently but that words are cheap," he said.
Mr. Romney criticized a number of Obama policies as bad for business, including the corporate-tax rate, the health-care plan and an assortment of regulations. "Government has to be the partner, the friend, the ally, the supporter of enterprise—not the enemy," Mr. Romney said.
One of Mr. Obama's chief goals is to make the case that voters face a choice between two candidates who couldn't be more different. To underscore that point, Mr. Obama on Tuesday compared Mr. Romney to Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican nominee.
"I said before, back in 2008, I had some strong disagreements with John McCain, but there were certain baselines that we both agreed on. We both agreed on things like immigration reform. We agreed on the existence of climate change. We agreed on the need to control campaign finance spending," Mr. Obama said. "This time out, across the board, there is just a fundamental disagreement, a difference of vision in terms of where we want to go."
In those remarks the president also boiled down Mr. Romney's vision to two ideas: "One is that we need to slash taxes even more, particularly for the wealthiest, most successful among us. And two, we need to eliminate any kind of regulations, whether consumer or worker regulations or environmental regulations, that in any way impede the free market from operating however it will."
Contrasting that with his vision, Mr. Obama said he believes government can't solve all of the country's problems, but can reorient its priorities to focus on overhauling education, science and research.
"That's really what this election is going to come down to: whose vision is more consistent with our history and those moments when we've been most successful as a country," Mr. Obama said. "And I think history is on our side, and the facts are on our side. When you think of recent history, when did we grow fastest? It was when Bill Clinton decided we're going to raise taxes a little bit, close our deficit in a responsible way, make investments in the future."
As he talks about how to boost the economy, Mr. Obama is also leaning more heavily into the debate over deficits. The White House, frustrated that Republicans have pinned the deficit on Mr. Obama even though the country was running a deficit when he took office, is moving more aggressively to challenge that narrative.
Republicans, the president said Tuesday, "think somehow they've got a winner on this issue." But he said the "notion that somehow we caused the deficits is just wrong." And he offered an analogy: "It's like somebody goes to a restaurant, orders a big steak dinner, martini, all that stuff, and then just as you're sitting down—they leave and accuse you of running up the tab."
Write to Carol E. Lee at [email protected]