Washington’s reliance on deficit spending and failure to invest in infrastructure are putting America in “a very dangerous situation,” Mayor Bloomberg is asserting.

“Some people would argue that you take a look at the debts that we’re piling up, we’re going to mirror a third world country pretty soon,” he said during a press conference in Brooklyn yesterday.

The mayor’s stark assessment came in response to a question about whether voters should factor in the economy when choosing their next president.

“I think there are a number of international and domestic issues that are critical, and the economy on the domestic side is clearly one of them. The economy nationwide is slowing down. People are being put out on the streets, out of their homes. We have not invested in the infrastructure that we need to go forward,” he said.

Mr. Bloomberg, who may be exploring a bid for the presidency, also took a swipe at protectionist trade and immigration policies, and called for Americans to look to new industries for work.

“We have been spending our time protecting jobs, which never works, rather than promoting jobs,” he said. “We have been focusing on trying to keep jobs here that just aren’t going to be here in the new economy of the world, and not focusing on education for our kids and our adults who will have to go and change.”

The mayor said America should look back to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policies to improve the economy.

“In the New Deal, we created new jobs, but we used the jobs to build an infrastructure that let us grow through the ’40s, and ’50s, and ’60s. We’re not doing that now. We’re also spending our children’s money and we’re not paying for things, we’re buying them and postponing the collection of the funds until later on. I mean, I think all of these things are leaving this country in a very dangerous situation.”

Asked about Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Senator Obama in the presidential race, Mr. Bloomberg suggested that endorsements might not matter as much as they once did.

“People in this day and age, I think, are much more independent,” he said. “They don’t listen to their union, they don’t listen to their editorial board, they don’t listen to anybody. They make their own judgments, and that’s probably pretty healthy.”