Republican candidate Mitt Romney today delivered remarks on free enterprise in St. Louis.

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney shakes hands of supporters during a campaign stop at Production Products in St. Louis. UPI / Bill Greenblatt

He says during the last year of campaigning, he’s been to every kind of business imaginable and continues to hear the same frustration and disappointment in the lack of economic progress.

“Americans are tired of being tired,” he said. “They’re tired of working harder for less and now for the first time, more Americans are starting to think our future might not be as bright as our past. That lack of faith in the future is a bridge to despair that we cannot cross.”

He talked about what he views as President Obama’s failure in policy making, such as the stimulus bill, and over-regulation, a sticking point for Republicans this year.

Echoing the sentiments of his man GOP members in Congress, he bashed Democrats for implementing “the job-crushing over-regulation of the EPA … the smothering economic effects of Obamacare,” and other “misguided policies.”

He says this is not what our forefathers envisioned for a free America.  

“Our example – and commitment – to freedom has changed the world. But along with the genius of our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights, is the equal genius of our economic system. Our Founding Fathers endeavored to create a moral and just society like no other in history, and out of that grew a moral and just economic system the likes of which the world had never seen. Our freedom, what it means to be an American, has been defined and sustained by the liberating power of the free enterprise system.”

Romney says America is on the cusp of having a government-run economy, and that Obama is “transforming America into something very different than the land of the free and the land of opportunity.”

He told those gathered that if elected, he would repeal Obama’s federal healthcare mandate as a first priority.