Romney Campaign Press Release - In Case You Missed It: Governor Romney On Government Spending

Governor Mitt Romney

CNBC's Debate Coverage

October 9, 2007

CNBC's Larry Kudlow: "Be specific. Let me ask this final question. I have suggested that we really need to put some beef on these conservative pledges to lower spending and lower taxes. If you're President, where would you cut in the vast federal budget, where would you go? Can you cite a department or an agency or a program or a cluster of programs? This is a kind of thing that hasn't been included yet in this campaign. What can you tell us specifically? Where's the beef on the spending cuts?"

Governor Mitt Romney: "Well the big beef of course is in entitlements. We're going to have to make sure that we honor our promises to seniors, but we reform the long term trajectory of Social Security for the 20, 30, 40-year-olds in Medicare and Medicaid. There's also extraordinary waste and duplication. There are 342 different economic development programs and there are billions of dollars that can be taken up by consolidating and by eliminating the inefficient and that's something which I'm going to begin doing. I want to carry out if you will a strategic audit. I want to go through every aspect of the federal government and cut out the waste, the duplication, the inefficiency, and then take on some of the big guys like overspending and Medicaid as well."

To watch Governor Romney, please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW8uqGJnTX8