Today's meeting with Congressional leadership at the White House was intended to be a demonstration of bipartisanship as officials look to stimulate the economy. To President Obama, bipartisanship came in the form of a request to GOP lawmakers to quit knocking what he feels is an economy that is in recovery.

"One of the things he told my Republican friends, is stop trying to frighten the American people," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters after the meeting. "He said it would help a lot if people would talk more positively about what is going on."

Republicans said that they came to the meeting with their own proposals for the White House to consider. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor said the meeting was actually "more in depth than usual," and that the president promised to consider them. But the party held firm to its view that any new jobs plan not include new spending.

"He challenged us to bring an economist to make the case that we ought not to be spending right now. We think that we've spent enough," Cantor said. "We think that spending money we don't have brings uncertainty, and in fact small and large businesses have reacted to that and have a whole lot of hesitancy about job creation."

To the point Obama made about scaring the public, House Minority Leader John Boehner said it's Obama's agenda that concerns business.

"The president wants to blame us for informing the American people about what's happening here and how it will effect them. But it's not what we're doing," he said. "It's the policies that they're promoting here in Washington."