Mere blocks from Sen. John Kerry’s Beacon Hill home, President George W. Bush ripped into the Democratic presidential candidate’s economic policies in front of nearly 1,000 supporters at a $2,000-a-head Bush-Cheney re-election fundraiser Thursday night at the Park Plaza Hotel.

Bush took responsibility for a 2.5 percent increase in economic activity during the last half of 2003 and criticized what he called Kerry’s plan to increase taxes and national spending.

“My opponent is one of the main opponents of tax relief in the United States Congress … He will tax all of you,” Bush said. “Higher taxes would undermine growth and destroy jobs, just as this economy is getting stronger.”

Bush said recent improvements in jobs and financial markets were the result of his tax cuts and that if re-elected, he would attempt to make the tax cuts permanent. Bush also said he would continue to create jobs – he said 350,000 jobs were created in the last quarter alone.

Bush did not, however, comment on Massachusetts Department of Labor employment statistics released last week, that showed almost 10,000 jobs were lost in February alone, and that hundreds of unemployed citizens have stopped looking for jobs altogether.

Without using the Massachusetts senator’s name, Bush also denounced Kerry’s proposed economic plan, which he said would increase taxes and government spending. He lashed out at Kerry’s Senate voting record on taxes, noting that Kerry had voted against the child tax credit, while at the same time voting to continue the marriage and estate taxes.

Bush also stressed his national security record and said his administration has actively pursued and attacked al-Qaida cells, successfully ended any Iraqi threat by arresting Saddam Hussein and prevented further attacks from foreign terrorists. Bush said his aggressive foreign policy has made the world safer, and added that Kerry had “flip-flopped” on the decision to attack Iraq preemptively.

“My opponent admits that Saddam Hussein was a threat,” he said. “He just didn’t support my decision to remove Saddam from power. Maybe he was hoping Saddam would lose the next Iraqi election.”

Attempting to put a positive face on American military operations since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush thanked American troops for their efforts and said American military operations have liberated thousands of once-oppressed Afghans and Iraqis. He also reaffirmed that the United States would multilaterally stabilize Iraq before withdrawing American military forces from the war-torn Middle-Eastern nation.

“We’re calling on other nations to help Iraq build a free society,” he said. “We’re standing with the Iraqi people – the brave Iraqi people – as they assume more of their own defense and move toward self-government. America will finish what we have begun.”

Bush supported many conservative stances throughout his speech – he said he would not support human cloning and hinted at his opposition to gay marriage.

“We will not stand for judges who undermine democracy by legislating from the bench,” he said.

Bush also said he would not rule out winning Massachusetts during the general election even though Massachusetts voters, who traditionally vote Democratic, have not elected a Republican president since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

“Some people would think that we wouldn’t have much support here,” he said. “But they’re wrong. We’ve got a lot of support in this city.”

More Massachusetts voters have been opening their wallets to the Bush-Cheney re-election effort than expected, campaign Press Secretary Scott Stanzel said.

“We’ve raised much more money in Massachusetts than we’d hoped,” he said.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney introduced the president, and former Republican Gov. William Weld also attended the event.

Bush returned to Washington, D.C. Thursday night immediately after the speech. Stanzel said he was not sure if the president would return to Massachusetts before the general election on Nov. 2.