By Ross Colvin

HOLLAND, Michigan (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday his policies were getting "an incredible bang for our buck" by boosting U.S. jobs, and chided Republicans for obstructing reforms he said were aiding economic recovery.

Speaking at the groundbreaking for a battery plant that has received federal dollars, Obama made no mention of one of his top reform goals -- the sweeping overhaul of financial regulations now near final passage in Congress.

Instead, Obama kept the focus on jobs, which together with his handling of the economy, looks like dominating congressional campaigns ahead of November mid-term elections.

"What is absolutely clear ... is that we are headed in the right direction -- and the surest way out of the storms we've been in is to keep moving forward, and not go backward," Obama said, in a familiar swipe at his Republican opponents.

Obama was in Holland, Michigan, to tout the benefits of a $862 billion emergency program he signed last year. Government spending has contributed to worry among voters about the country's deficit, but Obama pointed to the benefits.

"We're leveraging nearly three private dollars for every public dollar. That's an incredible bang for our buck."

Alongside his massive fiscal rescue plan and healthcare reform, Obama is close to victory on a sweeping overhaul of financial regulation, which he proposed over a year ago to prevent a repeat of the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Obama is likely to sign it into law next week.

Obama was at a battery plant owned by Compact Power Inc., a subsidiary of South Korea's LG Chem Ltd.

The plant is one of nine new advanced battery factories being built as a result of $2.4 billion the Obama administration earmarked for such projects, and it is expected to create hundreds of jobs in Holland.

It will manufacture batteries to support 52,000 Chevy Volts a year and will also supply batteries for the new electric Ford Focus.

But, in the face of stubbornly high unemployment, Obama has struggled to sell his job creation policies to Americans still feeling the pain of the worst recessions in decades.

POOR POLL NUMBERS

A series of polls this week showed that Americans are increasingly unhappy about Obama's handling of the economy.

To counter such perceptions, the administration on Wednesday trumpeted an analysis from the White House Council of Economic Advisers that said Obama's stimulus package had saved or created roughly 3 million jobs, and was on track to meet its goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year.

"By making critical seed money available, we have attracted more than $280 billion dollars in investment from private companies and others," Obama said in Holland.

But, four months before congressional elections, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has acknowledged that voters' economic frustrations could cost Democrats control of the House of Representatives. All 435 seats are at stake in November.

In a CBS News poll this week, only 40 percent of respondents approved of Obama's handling of the economy, while 52 percent felt he had spent too little time on the economy and too much time on healthcare reform.

With Americans viewing job creation as the country's top economic problem, Obama and members of his Cabinet are hitting the road to persuade voters that stimulus investments made under the Recovery Act have made a difference to their lives.

Obama's visit to Holland, Michigan, was the latest in a series of such trips to promote his administration's job creation efforts, but the polls suggest he has had little success in convincing Americans his policies are working.

(Writing by Ross Colvin and Alister Bull, editing by Alan Elsner)