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As congressional Republicans find themselves tangled over their newly introduced spending plans, President Obama tried Wednesday to seize the moment to talk about government spending on his terms, namely a focus on opportunities for the middle class.

Noting that Republican House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio often asks, "Where are the jobs?," Obama told a crowd in Cleveland he was there to "not only answer that question" but also to renew a central debate over the two major parties' economic visions.

Obama said that his administration's policies, such as investing in manufacturing and the landmark Affordable Care Act, have helped the nation emerge from a deep recession but that the Republican budget would "double down" on the theory that wealth trickles down from the rich to the rest.

"Reality has rendered its judgment," Obama said in a speech to the City Club of Cleveland. "Trickle-down economics doesn't work and middle-class economics does," he said, using the White House's umbrella term for its fiscal policies.

Meanwhile, Republicans who have the majority in both chambers of Congress are bogged down in trying to make their budgets workable as well as palatable to the party's competing factions.

More than two months into the new Congress, they are grasping for legislative victories and looking to the House and Senate budgets unveiled this week as chances for a win in Washington. The chambers are expected to approve the budgets next week.

"Hopefully that will be an opportunity for us to show some success," said GOP Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee.

Republicans are trying to present a unified front in their budget proposals, as internal debates have spilled out publicly between defense hawks, who want to bolster military coffers, and deficit-minded conservatives, who prefer to hold the line on new spending.

Although both of the party's budgets largely boost military spending at the expense of domestic social programs, House and Senate Republicans are at odds over how to accomplish that goal while still adhering to strict budget caps agreed to in a 2011 deal with the White House.

Senate Republicans made clear Wednesday that they view the House approach as essentially a gimmick. It calls for hiking defense spending by increasing money for an account used for wars that was not subject to the so-called sequester limits established in the 2011 deal. Senate Republicans prefer establishing a separate, new defense account funded with unspecified savings elsewhere, but it also would not be held to the 2011 caps.

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Obama touts economic policies as Republicans fight internally over budget