MILWAUKEE (AP) — President Barack Obama has been working to spoil Republican hopes for a resurgence in pivotal Wisconsin.

On Saturday, he pushed back against rival Mitt Romney's complaints about an overly intrusive government telling a Milwaukee audience that government can't solve every problem but is also not the source of every problem. He says Americans should not only accept responsibility for themselves but also for their communities and the nation.

The president faulted Romney for advancing a top-down economic approach that he said "never works."

Also, Obama made a point of renewing his pledge to create a million manufacturing jobs.

Meanwhile, Romney took time away from campaigning in the battleground states Saturday to troll for cash in California. But he did keep up his criticism of the president for fostering a culture of dependency. According to Romney, Obama is "taking Americans on a course that is extremely foreign to us." As he put it at a fundraiser near San Diego, "One would suggest that government knows better than free people." He said "It's a pathway to become like Europe, and Europe doesn't work there. It's never going to work here."

A Romney adviser says the GOP candidate would begin "a really intense battleground state schedule" with visits to Colorado, Ohio and Virginia in the coming week.

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