Romney to give spending, deficit speech Friday

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will deliver a speech on government spending and the deficit on Friday, a source familiar with the speech said Saturday.

Romney has hammered President Barack Obama over government spending, the federal deficit, and national debt repeatedly, on the campaign trail, in ads, and at the first presidential debate.

"The amount of debt we're adding, at a trillion a year, is simply not moral," he said at the first debate.

"The president said he'd cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it," Romney said. "Trillion-dollar deficits for the last four years. The president's put it in place, as much public debt - almost as much debt held by the public - as all prior presidents combined."

A CNN/ORC International poll found two-thirds of debate-watchers thought Romney won. Of people who watched the debate, 55% thought Romney would handle the economy better than Obama (who scored 43%), and a majority of debate-watchers thought Romney would better handle the deficit, too - 57% to 41%.

The source did not say where Friday's speech will be and refused to speak on the record because the speech has not been publicly announced.

Several weeks ago, CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger reported Romney's campaign was considering scheduling several key speeches on various topics, as aides tried to refocus the campaign and as it tried to sharpen Romney's differences with Obama. On Monday, the GOP candidate delivered a major foreign policy speech criticizing the Obama administration.