Appearing Sunday on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Mitt Romney stuck by his primary-era vow to reject a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases to tame the deficit.
His exchange with Bob Scheiffer:
SCHIEFFER: You were one of the vast majority of Republicans to signed the pledge circulated by the leading anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, no new taxes under any circumstances. And I remember once back during one of the primaries, you were asked if you would agree to $1 in taxes if you could get $10 cut in spending cuts, and you said at that time, no, I wouldn’t even accept that. Do you still feel that way?
ROMNEY: Well, we all felt that way. And the reason is that government, at all levels today, consumes about 37% of our economy.
SCHIEFFER: But do you still feel …
ROMNEY: Let me go on and explain. The answer is I do feel that way. Government is big and getting larger, and there are those who think the answer is just to take a little more from the American people, just give us a little more. and there are places that have gone that way– California, for instance, keeps raising taxes more and more and more. and funny thing, the more they raise in taxes, deficits get larger and larger. The only solution to taming an out-of-control spending government is to cut spending and my policies reduce the rate of spending. … That’s the way that we’re going to balance our budget: getting people back to work with rising incomes again.
Watch the video, via ThinkProgress.
