Romney on tax cuts

COOPER: Governor Romney, what do you think of Senator McCain's response?

ROMNEY: I appreciate his response and appreciate the fact he was part of the Reagan revolution. I think that the Bush revolution and the downturn that we faced when he came in office suggested that we needed a tax cut.

There's no question in my mind that Ronald Reagan would have said sign it and vote for it. And Senator McCain was one of two that did not. And again, the justification at the time was because it represents a tax cut for the rich.

I believe in getting rates down. I think that builds our economy.

When we talk about spending, however, I hope people in the country understand that most people in Washington, most politicians, generally want to talk about the $2 and $3 and $4 relative items. And they want to talk about the big one.

Right now, federal spending is about 60 percent for entitlements -- Social security, Medicare and Medicaid. And that's growing like crazy. It will be 70 percent entitlements, plus interest, by the time of the next president's second term.

And then the military is about 20 percent today. No one is talking about cutting the military, we ought to grow it.

So people talk about the 20 percent and how we have to go after that 20 percent. There's not enough in the 20 percent to go after if we don't go after the entitlement problem.

And you listen to all the folks running for president, no one wants to talk about it. But we have to talk about it.

We have to put together a plan that says we're going to rein in the excessive growth in those areas, promising to meet the obligations we made to seniors. We're not going to change the deal on seniors, but we're going to have to change the deal for 20 and 30 and 40-year- olds, or we're going to bankrupt our country.