Romney spent much of his address Thursday detailing his remedies for the economy, notably tax cuts and fewer regulations on business.

Obama answered Friday, citing “what’s holding us back is a stalemate, a stalemate between two fundamentally different views of which direction we should go. The Republicans who run Congress, the man at the top of their ticket – they don’t agree with any of the proposals I talked about.”

Instead, the president said, their plan is largely to cut taxes, particularly on the wealthy, and “roll back regulations and give insurance companies and credit card companies and mortgage lenders even more power to do as they please.”

“I think they’re wrong,” he added.

Fine, Republicans said – we’d love to talk about the economy.

Immigration “is a very important issue in the Hispanic community, but the vast majority of us do not wake up in the morning and think about immigration all day,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who spoke before Obama. “We worry about making payroll on Friday. We worry about balancing our family’s budget at the end of the month.”

But immigration is still the issue that’s on most minds at this three-day conference. Rubio spent most of his 15-minute speech discussing it. He took some jabs at the president for not engaging enough in the issue, but like other Republicans here he said immigration was one issue where bipartisanship was crucial.

“As long as this issue of immigration is a political pingpong that each side uses to win elections and influence votes,” he said, “I’m telling you it won’t get solved.”