GOFFSTOWN, NH — While McCain and Obama have been going back and forth for weeks about whether a scalpel or a hatchet is the proper tool to cut spending the GOP nominee today said he would empty the barn in order to cut the federal budget.

“My friends, I will take a cleaver, I’ll take a meat axe and I’ll take a scalpel,” he told supporters outside Manchester today, adding that Obama “won’t even specify a single cut in spending that he would consider.”

Concord, NH – Mitt Romney lays into his opponents’ economic records in his latest direct mail piece hitting New Hampshire homes this week. Taxes are a HOT issue in the “live free or die” state and the latest pamphlet, obtained by Fox News Tuesday, Romney takes direct aim at his rivals in one of the most pointed missives he has sent out to NH voters so far.

He calls John McCain “big-government, big-tax, big-bureaucracy,” labels Rudy Giuliani “higher taxes and budget-busting spending,” and notes that Mike Huckabee “supported numerous tax increases,” in a glossy pamphlet titled “Taxpayers must take a hard look at the candidates for president.” It adds that Romney has the “experience, vision and values to defend the American taxpayer.”

The mail also makes note that Romney is the “FIRST major Republican candidate to pledge to oppose any attempt to raise taxes on Americans,” a very significant issue for New Hampshire voters. McCain and Giuliani both refuse to take “pledges” and Huckabee signed the pledge after Romney. (See full pamphlet after jump)

(more…)