Obama: Economic Recovery 'Not Rocket Science'

Obama echoed the same themes here that he had at the earlier event, but placed much of the blame for the nation's current financial woes squarely on Capitol Hill. “Obviously we’ve had a tough couple of weeks in the economy ... [but] too much of it was self-inflicted. It had to do with political paralysis here in Washington. And that’s not a surprise to a lot of folks, but I think for the American people they recognize that we don’t have time for some of the squabbling that’s been taking place because there are too many folks who are still out of work ... and the kind of brinksmanship that we saw on the debt ceiling made absolutely no sense in terms of where we need to take the country.”

The president downplayed the volatile markets that dominated much of the day's news cycle, choosing instead to focus on long-term economic issues. "Markets will go up and down, but the underlying challenges have held steady for too long," he said.