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The national party committees are going after each other on jobs ahead of the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night and the President Obama's address Thursday to a joint session of Congress.

The Republican National Committee released a new Web video Wednesday as Obama prepares to unveil his job-creation plans to lawmakers, attacking the president's handling of the economy and suggesting that similar economic speeches have already been made -- without any tangible results. The current unemployment rate is hovering at just above 9 percent.

The minute-long spot features clips from previous Obama speeches in which he promises a more direct administration focus on creating jobs. Each clip is marked with a date and the unemployment rate at the time of the speech. “This is my administration’s overriding focus,” says Obama in a speech from November 2009, the first year of his presidency, when unemployment was 9.9 percent.

Woven between the snippets is video from a Maxine Waters town-hall meeting, in which the Democratic congresswoman said, “Our people are hurting. . . . Unemployment is unconscionable.” The California lawmaker, an influential member of the Congressional Black Caucus, has been outspoken about the unemployment rate, especially among African Americans, and has called on Obama to invest at least $1 trillion in a jobs program. The video also notes the August jobs report, which showed that no new jobs were created that month.

"For the 2½ years, President Obama has repeatedly promised to focus on jobs, but, instead, he has prioritized taxing, spending and regulating," RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. "With ZERO jobs created in the month of August, it's time to change direction."

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee launched its own offensive as Republican White House hopefuls prepare for a nationally televised debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. In a report issued Wednesday morning, the DNC asserted that Tea Party-backed economic policies, such as the proposed balanced budget amendment and spending caps, would cost 9.5 million jobs across the country and would force Congress to make “deep cuts” to education, health care, Social Security and Medicare. “That would have disastrous effects on middle class families,” the DNC says in the report. Midwest and Rust Belt states, many of which tend to swing in presidential elections, would be particularly vulnerable to job losses as a result of spending cuts, according to the memo.

“The Tea Party economic plan endorsed by the GOP presidential field, euphemistically referred to as Cut, Cap and Balance, might make for great sound bites at a Tea Party Express rally, but based our analysis, it would be devastating to American workers and the middle class.”

So far, presidential contenders Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have signed a "cut, cap and balance" pledge, which was introduced in late June by a coalition of conservative advocacy groups to support similar legislation in Congress. In July, the Senate tabled the bill, which has been passed by the House.

The Democrats' strategy has been to tie the Republican Party to its Tea Party faction, which had an influential voice during this summer’s debt ceiling debate. The DNC has dispatched a couple of its key operatives to attend the Republican debate Wednesday night.