Remarks at a Campaign Event in Mansfield, Ohio

Thank you. Thank you. What a welcome from the Buckeye State. Thank you so much! [cheers and applause]

[inaudible] — listening to Mark and listening to your senator here. You are so lucky to have a terrific senator, Rob Portman — [inaudible] — thank you, Rob — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause]

Mike Romanchuk, he built this place. [inaudible] [cheers and applause]

I heard the strains of a beautiful musical number a moment ago, strains of the National Anthem. Who sang that? Is she here? Right there. Is that you — [inaudible]? That was beautiful. Thank you so very much. [cheers and applause]

I also heard you pledge allegiance to the flag. [cheers and applause]

[cheers and applause]

(I remember ?) doing that as a boy in fourth grade. This is — [inaudible]. Do sit down, by the way. You got — [inaudible] — and I'd like to (thank you ?) for standing up all day.

And she brought us up in front of the blackboard. We stand straight. And she would have us pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And I'm (honored ?) by the promises. One of those promises was the one that I made — the ones that I made in the Pledge of Allegiance. I believe it's important to have a president — and I would be a president, if elected, that honors that pledge — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause]

That pledge says that we are a nation under God. And if I'm president of the United States — [cheers and applause] — [inaudible] — president of the United States, I will not take God — [inaudible] — I will not take God out of the public (square ?), and I will not — [inaudible] — [cheers and applause].

[inaudible] — says we're one nation, indivisible, one nation, the story of America has bene a story of the many — [inaudible] — one, united in purpose. America (has built ?) strongest economy in the world united. United America — [inaudible] — unspeakable darkness, and — and foreign places have fought back against that darkness and allowed democracy and freedom to — to thrive. Americans united have accomplished extraordinary things for the (history ?) of this planet. And I'll tell you one thing: I will not — [inaudible] — as I see the president — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause]

(Off mic) — with liberty for all. With liberty for all. Liberty here and liberty around the world is protected in large measure by the strength of the military of the United States of America. And I will make sure our military remains second to none and is so strong no one will think of testing it. [cheers and applause]

It's hard for me to understand how the president would have as his intentions not only reducing our military through cuts in his budget, but also proceeding with a sequestration program which will cost — cost about a trillion dollars for our military — [inaudible].

This sequestration idea emanated from the White House, and it will result in the loss of thousands and thousands and hundreds of precious jobs across this country. If you add — once it goes forward, it would also be bad for our national security. If I'm president of the United States, I will not cut our military budget, I will preserve it and keep America's military strong. [cheers and applause]

You know — you know, as part of the sequestration law — the law that will be signed, the president — [inaudible] — it requires the president of the United States to specify specifically what cuts he's going to make to the military. I know it's an election year, and so he hasn't — [inaudible] — do with the law. Even though the law he signed requires he has to put out those cuts. He won't describe all the jobs that are going to be lost. [inaudible] — probably until after the election.

You see, we found one secret related to national security that he's willing to keep. [laughter]

[inaudible] — [cheers and applause] — there's another secret he's willing to keep — [inaudible] — national security and that is the flexibility he's willing to give Russia — [inaudible]. (Groans, boos.)

Now there's another (measure ?) of our national anthem, and it says this: with justice for all, not just for liberty — with liberty for all but also with justice for all.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah!

MR. ROMNEY: In my view, it is not just for my generation to rack up a trillion-dollar debts every year and pass those debts on to our kids. [cheers and applause] That is not right, it's wrong, it's immoral, and it's unjust, and it must end. [cheers and applause]

I also I don't believe it's just for us as a nation, the most prosperous nation on earth, to — [inaudible] — so many people struggling without work and struggling in poverty when with our prosperity and with the right principles, the principles that built our economy, we can put people back to work. We today have 23 million Americans out of work or stopped looking for work or underemployed. These are real families. These are real people. It breaks your heart to meet these people. I've seen them at (that ?) — been in events like this and shaken hands with a miner who said, please help me keep my job. I was with a couple in Appleton, Wisconsin, both of them concerned about their future; was with a woman in Florida who's been out of work for — I think she said three years — two or three years!

These are tough times for the American people, and it doesn't have to be this way. We can do better than this. The kind of president the American people need is a president who will go to work to — [inaudible] — an economy, put Americans back to work — [cheers and applause] — and I will. [cheers and applause]

You know, I was surprised when I heard his speech at the Democratic Convention. He didn't mention unemployment. [laughter] He didn't mention 47 million people on food stamps. By the way, that's a record number, and not a good record. When he took office, there were 32 million people on food stamps, now 47 million, 1-out-of-6 Americans living in poverty. These are not numbers or people he spoke about during his convention speech.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's not Bush's fault!

MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, it's — yeah. [laughter and applause] Not only did he not mention those people, he did not mention what he would do to help people get back to work. He does not have a plan. His idea is that "Obamacare" and the stimulus are all we need. I don't want "Obamacare," and I don't want another stimulus — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause] He — [inaudible] — campaign slogan. You know what it is. He says, "Forward. "Forward" in his campaign slogan. I think "forewarned" is a better term. (Laughter, cheers, applause.)

We know what would happen if he were re-elected. We would see more years of lagging employment. We'd see more years of massive deficits. We'd see more years of all — [inaudible] — this country. We'd see more years of — [inaudible] — the kind of crisis you see in Europe. We're forewarned, and that's why we're not going to re-elect this man — [inaudible] — [cheers and applause] — create jobs and prosperity. We don't want four more years of the last four years.

And I have a plan. [inaudible] — saying to the rest of America to get the kind of jobs we need again. Five parts to my plan.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Tell us!

MR. ROMNEY: Five things I'll do. Thank you for asking. Number one — [laughter] — I am going to take advantage of our energy resources, our coal and our oil, our gas — [cheers and applause] — our nuclear, our renewables.

I'm going to take advantage of energy. [inaudible] — coal. Let's use our coal. We've got a lot of it. Let's use — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause]

I'm going to make sure that — [inaudible] — natural gas, again extraordinary resources of natural gas. (I don't want ?) the regulators to stop us from being able to use that. I also want to be able to drill on public lands — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause] I'll double the rate of drilling for oil, for gas — [inaudible] — resources! [cheers and applause]

That's number one, energy. And we could have North American energy independence within eight years. When I say North American energy independence, I say — [inaudible] — that pipeline from Canada — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause] [inaudible] — that's number one, of course, energy.

Number two relates to three. I want to be able to sell goods around the world. We're a productive nation. And you're going to see, by the way, more manufacturers come back to this country. I was talking to Mark before we came in. He said, you know, we're seeing jobs come back. [inaudible] — purchasers of manufactured products expect those products to be made here instead of overseas.

We can bring manufacturing back, (create work for Americans ?), but we have to crack down on cheaters like China — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause]

Number three, we have to make sure that our workers have the skills that they need to be successful and to be competitive globally. So I'm not going to just have more government training programs, I'm going to work together with manufacturers and others — [inaudible] — to make sure that we get workers the skills they need. Ann by the way, I want our kids to have the skills they need for the challenges — [inaudible] — [cheers and applause] — I want our kids — [inaudible] — behind. [cheers and applause]

Number four — number four, you're not going to see entrepreneurs risk their life savings — [inaudible] — business or big companies overseas — [inaudible] — factory unless they are confident we're not going to find ourselves — [inaudible] — with Greece, because if we keep on spending a trillion dollars more a year than we take in, that's where we're headed. And the people (will ?) understand that.

And this president has not been willing to deal with the present crisis. He's not been willing to deal with the deficit. As a matter of fact, this — these numbers — [inaudible]. We he came into office we had $10 trillion in debt. That's all of the prior presidents combined — [inaudible] — 10 trillion (dollars). In four years he added 6 trillion (dollars). We now have $16 trillion of deficit. [boos]

If I become president, I will cut our spending. I will get on track to a balanced budget. It's the right thing to do for our economy — [inaudible]. [cheers and applause]

And one more, number five, number five, I want to champion small business — [cheers and applause] — [inaudible]. And I'm going to do first of all by — [inaudible] — that very simple truth, and that is it takes enormous risk to build a business. It takes heart and passion and vision.

It takes a lot of people coming together who are working in the enterprise. But most of all, I recognize that the people who achieve great things in this country, whether it's the kid that goes on the honor roll or the worker that gets the promotion or the — [inaudible] — or the person who builds a business, I recognize they built it. They did, and the government didn't. [cheers and applause]

And so we're going to build small business again. We're going to encourage small business in America. Two-thirds of the jobs created in our economy are created by small business. President Obama wants to raise taxes on small business. I want to lower taxes on small business. [cheers and applause] I want regulations for the small — lower on small business. And I want to get rid of "Obamacare" because it's killing jobs and small business. [cheers and applause]

Look, the president — the president correctly said in his speech that America has a choice, a very dramatic and significant choice. I think that's absolutely right. We know what that choice is as it relates to our military. His plan is to cut our military massively, something even our secretary of defense — his secretary of defense has said it would be devastating. But that's the path he wants to put us on.

He wants to raise taxes on small business. That's the path he's put us on. He's increased regulation massively on small business. That's the path he's put us on.

He has "Obamacare" that he will install — [booing] — [inaudible] --health care — [inaudible]. That's the path he's put us on. He's cut Medicare — he's cut Medicare about $760 billion to pay for "Obamacare." That's the path he's put us on.

He wants fundamentally transform America. [boos] I don't want America to become something new.

I want America to become something better. I will make it better by restoring the principles that made America the powerful and proud nation that we are. [cheers and applause]

I love this country. I love the prospects of a free and prosperous land. I know we can bring those principles, we can bring those prospects back. I'm absolutely convinced that that plan I just described to you, those five points — we put them into place and this economy is going to come back. We're going to start creating jobs again. You're going to see a — [inaudible] — balanced budget. That's actually going to hit the realm of reality, all right? That's going to happen. We're going to get Americans to work with higher wages again. And you're going to be confident that child's future is brighter even than your — than your past. America does not have to have the long face we have right now, and as the president, we can get America going again, growing again. I know how to do it. [cheers and applause] I'm calling on you for your help. I need Ohio to help me become the next president. We're going to take a step forward to keep this nation strong and keep America the hope of the earth. [cheers and applause]

Thank you so very much. You guys are the best. [cheers and applause] Thank you, Ohio! We're going to get it done. Thank you! [cheers and applause]