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Number two, we take some programs that we are going to keep, like Medicaid, which is a program for the poor. We're—take that health care program for the poor, and we give it to the states to run because states run these programs more efficiently. As a governor, I thought, please, give me this program.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Can he do that?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: (Inaudible.)
MR. ROMNEY: I can run this more efficiently than the federal government. And states, by the way, are proving it. States like Arizona, Rhode Island have taken these Medicaid dollars, have shown they can run these programs more cost effectively.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Bob—
MR. ROMNEY: So I want to do those two things that gets us—it gets us to a balanced budget with eight in—eight to 10 years. PRESIDENT OBAMA: Bob—
MR. ROMNEY: But the military—
MR. SCHIEFFER: Let—
MR. ROMNEY: Let's go back to the military, though.
MR. SCHIEFFER: Well, that's what I'm trying to find out about.
MR. ROMNEY: Let's talk about the military.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You should have answered the first question.
Look, Governor Romney's called for $5 trillion of tax cuts that he says he's going to pay for by closing deductions.
Now, the math doesn't work but he continues to claim that he's going to do it. He then wants to spend another $2 trillion on military spending that our military's not asking for.
Now, keep in mind that our military spending has gone up every single year that I've been in office. We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined—China, Russia, France, the United—United Kingdom, you name it, next 10. And what I did was work with our Joint Chiefs of Staff to think about what are we going to need in the future to make sure that we are safe? And that's the budget that we've put forward.
But what you can't do is spend $2 trillion in additional military spending that the military is not asking for, $5 trillion on tax cuts, you say that you're going to pay for it by closing loopholes and deductions without naming what those loopholes and deductions are, and then somehow you're also going to deal with the deficit that we've already got. The math simply doesn't work.
But when it comes to our military, what we have to think about is not, you know, just budgets, we got to think about capabilities. We need to be thinking about cybersecurity. We need to be thinking about space. That's exactly what our budget does, but it's driven by strategy. It's not driven by politics. It's not driven by members of Congress and what they would like to see. It's driven by what are we going to need to keep the American people safe?
That's exactly what our budget does. And it also then allows us to reduce our deficit, which is a significant national security concern because we've got to make sure that our economy is strong at home so that we can project military power overseas.
MR. ROMNEY: Bob, I'm pleased that I've balanced budgets. I was in the world of business for 25 years.
If you didn't balance your budget, you went out of business. I went to the Olympics that was out of balance, and we got it on balance and made a success there. I had the chance to be governor of a state. Four years in a row, Democrats and Republicans came together to balance the budget. We cut taxes 19 times, balanced our budget. The president hasn't balanced a budget yet. I expect to have the opportunity to do so myself.
MR. SCHIEFFER: All right.
MR. ROMNEY: I—I'm going to be able to balance the budget. Let's talk about military spending, and that's this. Our Navy—
MR. SCHIEFFER: About 30 seconds.
MR. ROMNEY: Our Navy is older—excuse me—our Navy is smaller now than any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We're now down to 285. We're headed down to the—to the low 200s if we go through with sequestration. That's unacceptable to me. I want to make sure that we have the ships that are required by our Navy.
Our Air Force is older and smaller than any time since it was founded in 1947. We've changed for the first time since FDR. We—since FDR we had the—we've always had the strategy of saying we could fight in two conflicts at once. Now we're changing to one conflict.
