President Obama said today he will start issuing executive orders to forge new economic policies because "we can't wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job."

"Where they won't act, I will," Obama told a group of homeowners in Las Vegas. Nevada has the nation's highest unemployment rate -- 13.4% -- and one of its highest rates of home foreclosures.

"People out here don't have a lot of time or a lot of patience for some of that nonsense that's been going on in Washington," Obama said.

Obama said he will start with an order to help struggling homeowners renegotiate their mortgages, because the housing crisis is such "a drag on the economy." USA TODAY's Julie Schmit explains the new housing finance rules here.

This week, Obama plans to issue executive orders for plans to encourage business owners to hire veterans and to help students repay college loans.

Though presidential action can help the economy, it cannot replace bipartisan congressional action, Obama said as he again criticized congressional Republicans for blocking his $447 billion jobs plan.

"We can't just wait for Congress," Obama said. "Until they act, until they do what they need to do, we're going to act on our own, because we can't wait for Congress to help our families and our economy."

Obama said part of his American Jobs Act would help the housing industry by putting "construction workers to work rehabilitating vacant or abandoned homes and businesses all across the country."

Congressional Republicans said Obama's jobs plan is too expensive and disputed the notion that it would create many jobs; they noted that the national unemployment rate remains at 9.1% more than two-and-a-half years after Obama took office and signed many of his policies into law.

"Congress passed his stimulus bill, his health spending bill, his Dodd/Frank (financial regulation) bill, his state funding bill and his housing plans," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

"And now," Stewart said, "the housing market's down, unemployment is up and the president is now acknowledging that all that didn't work by constantly pointing out how bad the economy is."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who has criticized Obama's spending programs, said he is willing to work with the president on such items as tax cuts and deregulation to help spur job creation.

Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said, "This week, the House is going to pass a component of the president's jobs plan -- the repeal of a 3% tax that companies must pay when doing business with the government, any level of the government (it's a jobs killer)."