B. Clinton: GOP adopts European policies

NEW YORK, June 4 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said Monday the Republican Party and presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney "have adopted Europe's economic policies."

Speaking in New York at a fundraiser for the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama, Clinton said the Republican plan for the U.S. economy is "austerity and unemployment now, and then a long- term budget that would explode the debt when the economy recovers so the interest rates would be so high, nobody would be able to do anything."

"The Republican Congress and their nominee for president, Governor Romney, have adopted Europe's economic policies," Clinton said at the home of Avenue Capital Group founder Marc Lasry.

He said Obama's economic policy is "job growth now, and long-term budget restraint." Clinton accused Republicans of engaging in politics of "constant conflict" and said GOP economic policies are "crazy."

Obama spoke of a post-World War II consensus in which the market was accepted as "the best generator of wealth and opportunity" and "it was understood that America's business was business and government was not the ultimate source of our wealth."

He said both parties accepted the necessity of paying for "infrastructure, education, environmental rules."

"But over the last 15 years, the last 20 years, that consensus has broken down," he said, accusing the Republican Party of "absolutism when it comes to the marketplace. A belief that all regulations are bad. That government has no role to play."

Obama was headed for two more fundraising events in New York Monday -- a gala at the Waldorf Astoria, where rocker Jon Bon Jovi was booked to perform, and a concert on Broadway at The New Amsterdam Theater, featuring appearances by Bobby Cannavale, Stockard Channing, Neil Patrick Harris, Megan Hilty, James Earl Jones, Tony Kushner, Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, and Mandy Patinkin, among others.