CHICAGO -- President Bush on Friday opened a sharp election-year attack against Democrats, who he said would devastate the economy and turn back recent job gains by blocking free trade and raising taxes.

It was Bush's first 2006 speech on the road and, with Republican control of Congress potentially at stake in the November elections, the president pulled no punches.

''Just as this economy is getting going, there are some in Washington who want to take the money out of your pocket,'' the president said in a speech before a friendly audience from The Economic Club of Chicago. ''They think they can spend it better than you can.'' He mentioned Democrats only once but it was clear they were the target of his remarks.

Bush has repeatedly called for Congress to make permanent all the tax cuts passed at his urging earlier in his administration. Most are due to expire before or at the end of 2010.

With GOP leaders having had little success making the cuts permanent, the House and Senate are debating bills to extend some through the end of the decade. Democrats particularly oppose extending the lower rates for capital gains and dividends.

The president equated that opposition with an intention to raise taxes by people he said ''don't believe in tax cuts.'' He ridiculed one unnamed Democratic lawmaker -- later identified as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. -- for saying during floor debate that the cuts were ''a reckless, irresponsible tax plan that will undermine opportunity in our country.''

''Since that congresswoman had uttered those words, the economy has added more than 4.5 million new jobs,'' Bush said, crediting the tax cuts for the gains.

Pelosi quickly replied from Washington. ''Recent news about cuts in workers' pay and insecurity about their pensions is also increasing the economic concerns of the American people,'' she said. ''And yet the Bush administration is cheerleading policies that help the wealthy while doing nothing to address these fundamental problems.''