Romney on the state of the nation

The first question is actually a question that will go to all of you, but I'll start with Governor Romney.

Ronald Reagan himself asked this question during a debate. During a 1980 debate, he suggested Americans determine who to vote for by asking themselves, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

So tonight, in terms of the economy, are Americans better off than they were eight years ago?

ROMNEY: Well, if you're voting for George Bush, you'd be very interested in knowing the answer to that. If you're voting for Mitt Romney, you'd like to know, "Are you better off in Massachusetts after four years of my term in office?" And the answer would be decidedly yes.

I came into a state which was very much in a deep ditch. It was losing money every month. We had a $3 billion budget gap. We had people losing jobs every single month. During my predecessor's term, we'd lost 160,000 jobs.

We kept losing jobs for a couple of years. We got it turned around, began adding jobs back. We won some huge contracts to bring in some new employers into the state. Some of them haven't even built their facilities yet.

We solved our budget problem, $3 billion budget gap, without raising taxes. We were able to do that in a way that I think surprised folks.

COOPER: Let me just interrupt. The question was: Are Americans better off than they were eight years ago? And as you know, there are a lot of Americans out right now who are very interested in the answer. They're not feeling particularly good about their home sales -- the value of their homes dropping down or the unemployment rate rising.

How do you feel America is doing?

ROMNEY: Well, again, I'm pleased with what I do while I was -- as governor and happy to talk about that record.

COOPER: Are you running for governor or are you running for president, though?

ROMNEY: But I'm not running on President Bush's record. President Bush can talk about his record. Washington is badly broken. I think we recognize that. Washington has not dealt with the problems that we have in this nation. It hasn't reduced our burdens on our middle class, hasn't solved the Social Security problems, hasn't dealt with the health care crisis that we have in this country, hasn't improved our schools as much as we'd like to get them improved.

Nevertheless, this president did pull us out of a deep recession. He put in place two tax cuts which did get the country out of a recession and helped rebuild the country. Now we see ourselves headed apparently towards one again. We hope not.

ROMNEY: Whether there's a recession technically or not, one thing we know -- middle-income families are feeling squeezed and people are losing homes and people are having a hard time paying for their gasoline and they're having a hard time paying for heating oil in places that that's a big part of their life.

And as a result, we've got people that feel there needs to be a change in Washington and that's something I represent.