Quotes from first US presidential debate

US President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney faced off in Denver on Thursday in the first of three broadcast debates ahead of the US presidential elections on November 6. Here are some highlights of what the two candidates said.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

On healthcare:
“The answer is not to have the federal government take over healthcare and start mandating to the providers across America and telling a patient and a doctor what kind of treatment they can have. That’s the wrong way to go. The private market and individual responsibility always work best.”
   
On the federal deficit:
“I think it’s frankly not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in knowing that the burden is going to be passed on to the next generation and they’re going to be paying the interest and principal all their lives.”

On regulation:
“Regulation is essential. You can’t have a free market work without regulation... You have to have regulation so that you can have the economy work. Every free economy has regulation. At the same time regulation can become excessive, it can become out of date. And what’s happened with some of the legislation that’s been passed under President Obama’s term is you’ve seen some of the regulation become excessive and it has hurt the economy.”