Romney: Obama is no tax-cutter or deregulator

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Mitt Romney on Wednesday said President Obama is detached from reality if he thinks -- as he said in his State of the Union address -- that he is a tax-cutter who is trying to get rid of regulations that stifle the economy.

"His words and his actions are so different, it's sometimes hard to believe," Romney said at a metal fabrication plant in a speech billed as a State of the Union rebuttal. He said Obama has raised taxes and tripled the rate of new regulations introduced. "So he says that he wants to cut regulations even though he's the guy that dramatically increased them," Romney said.

In his State of the Union Tuesday night, Mr. Obama said he has "approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor (George W. Bush) did in his. I've ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don't make sense."

Romney also challenged Obama's assertion that he wants to use all energy resources. "Isn't this the guy who has been holding off offshore drilling? Isn't this the guy whose EPA has made it almost impossible for us to get oil out of North and South Dakota, and parts of Oklahoma and Texas? Isn't this the guy whose regulators have made it almost impossible to get natural gas out of Pennsylvania?" Romney asked.

Romney said he was "just shaking my head" while watching Obama on TV on Tuesday night. "I think it's time to have somebody who says what he means and means what he says, and if I am president, that's the kind of president I'd be," he said.