Romney: Obama's performance 'inexcusable'

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BETTENDORF, Iowa, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Mitt Romney took his Republican presidential campaign back to Iowa Wednesday where he ripped President Barack Obama, calling him an incapable leader.

"President Obama, bless his heart, has tried to substitute government for free people and it has not worked and it will never work," The Washington Post quoted the former Massachusetts governor as saying. "He said he'd cut the deficit in half; he doubled it. He said he'd get people good jobs; instead, we've gone 42 straight months with unemployment over 8 percent. Twenty-three million Americans out of work or stopped looking for work. It's inexcusable."

The U.S. economy was in an economic free fall when Obama, a Democrat, took over from his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, in January 2009. The economy has added 4.5 million jobs in the past 29 months, including 1.1 million this year, Obama said this month.

Romney said the federal government needs to learn from the private sector.

"It's the nature of the private sector, where if you stand still people will end up rushing by you," he said. "It's also true in the public sector, they just don't know it. If a nation doesn't change the way it does things and improve and find ways to have government become more and more efficient and hold down the spending and balance the budgets, why other nations will run right by them."

Romney called on each of his supporters to go out and "find one person who voted for Barack Obama last time and convince them that we should take a different course."

"Remind them how disappointing it's been over these past three and a half, four years. Find 'em, talk to them, get 'em to the polls," he said.