How could you fix the budget

• LAMB: : Well, what -- as you look at Washington, you have got a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican president, and you mentioned the money thing, the deficit is big, the balanced budget doesn’t exist anymore.

 

How could you come into the middle of all of this and change that?

 

• ROMNEY: Well, I’m not about to announce anything of that nature right now. But I can say that the gap between how Congress and the president work in Washington, how Washington works and how states work is really quite shocking in some respects, I think to everybody.

 

I mean, I have -- I come from a state that has a legislature that is 85 percent Democratic. I get along with the speaker of the house and the senate president. I realize I can’t do anything without a collaborative approach with them.

 

Sometimes we battle things out and if I can get public opinion on my side, I might get a victory, but by and large we have to work collaboratively. And we do. We balanced our budget three years ago, $3 billion out of whack, we balanced it without raising taxes.

 

I couldn’t do that without their support and their collaboration. And somehow Washington has to reduce the temperature, the boiling that goes on here, the critical harping that seems to go on, the partisanship.

 

And, you know, it’s interesting, that happens in my state. Election year, you know, the last six months before the election everybody starts pointing at each other, getting ready for the campaign, but as soon as the campaign is over, the campaign rhetoric is buried and you meet in each other’s office and talk about what has to be done.

 

And I don’t know why we can’t return to that in Washington as the way of doing business. And I’m not going to point fingers one way or the other. But it’s not as if everything in Washington is run by Republicans.

 

It’s a collaboration between two parties, as it should be. And there is nothing wrong with debate and disagreement over issues. But there seems to be a personal rancor and an attempt to seize on every gotcha opportunity as a way to try and embarrass the opposition party.

 

And it’s not one party more than the other. I think it’s both. And it has to change. There is too much at stake right now. The nation is facing challenges which are far too great to allow this kind of partisanship and rancor guide so much of our national agenda.

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• LAMB: : How does it change?

 

• ROMNEY: Well, it changes with people. It changes with individuals, being willing to take a hit and not respond. It changes by personal relationships, by individuals being invited into each other’s homes.

 

It changes by holding out an olive leaf. I was very pleased with much of what the president has been able to accomplish. No Child Left Behind, he was able to get that done in part by collaborating with Senator Kennedy. And they worked together and both parties worked together. That’s what I think is key.