President Barack Obama’s senior campaign strategist, David Axelrod, placed the blame for inaction on the stagnant economy squarely on Congress’ shoulders this morning.

Although presidents have butted heads with Congress before, this is a different climate, marked by Congressional Republicans trying to sink the president’s re-election campaign, according to Axelrod.

“There’s something different going on right now,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They don’t want to cooperate, they don’t want to help, even on measures to help the economy that they have supported before.

“Are they willing to tear down the economy to tear down the president?” he asked.

Axelrod conceded that a series of executive actions that the administration is taking independent of Congress will not solve the entire problem, saying, “There’s no panacea.” But he added that if Congress would pass Obama’s stalled jobs package, the economy would be better off.

“We just have to get the Congress to act on it. Their strategy seems to be obstruction and delay,” he said. “It would be great to get some cooperation.”

Axelrod also responded to a New York Times article stating that several of Obama’s campaign bundlers are unregistered lobbyists, despite his pledge not to take money from lobbyists.

“We can quibble about issues like this, but when you look at the substance of what he’s done, he’s gone further than anyone else” in ending the revolving door between industry and government, Axelrod said. “It’s not a perfect system, but is he better than anyone has ever been with this? Has he made a real difference with this? Absolutely.”