Romney Bashes 'Social Welfare State' as he Eyes S.C. Primary

(Newsroom America) -- Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney lashed out big government in an interview Thursday, saying as president he would restore free-market capitalism to replace the "European social welfare state" he says is in place in the U.S. now.

In taking aim at President Obama, who he'll face in November if he wins his party's nomination, Romney said his administration would be much more friendly to the middle class.

"The right course for America is not to divide America, to create envy to justify his redistribution policies," Romney said in an interview with CNBC.

Rather, he wants to "say how can we make America more of an opportunity nation, how can we make America a better place for entrepreneurs and business worldwide to say, 'We want to come to America, we want to invest in America, we want to manufacture in America, we want to make products of all kinds in America.'

"That's the only way I know of to have good jobs for our people," he said, according to CNBC.

Romney has won the first two nominating events, the Iowa caucus last week and the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. His campaign says he's now focused on winning in South Carolina, the next primary, on Jan. 21.

The former Massachusetts governor defended himself against attacks that, as a member of private equity giant Bain Capital, was more involved in destroying jobs than creating them.

"Every case that we invested, we invested to try and make the business more successful, more sustainable to try and find more growth for it," Romney told CNBC.

"I'm happy to show my record of job creation. Actually, my record of job creation in the private sector has created more jobs than the president has created in the entire country," he said.

Romney added that his policies of smaller government and tax cuts would do far more to stimulate the economy than policies implemented under Obama.

"If you follow the president, we're going to be more like Europe, more like a European social welfare state. If instead we take my course, we're going to look more like America if you will, creating more opportunity for more people and helping lift people with better jobs and rising incomes," he said. "By the way, the president's policy over the last three years — it's failed us."

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