Americans are losing their "free economy" because President Obama is implementing "an economic system controlled by government," Mitt Romney argued today.

"Do you know how big government is as percentage of our economy today?" Romney asked the Republican National Committee state chairmen's meeting today. "Federal state and local government represents 38 percent of our economy. And if Obamacare is allowed to stand they'll take that up to almost half of the total economy."

"Are we still a free economy, in a setting like that?" he asked. "And then if you take the things that government is trying to control indirectly . . . they will directly or indirectly control over half of the economy. That's where they're taking us. I don't believe in an economic system run by government, controlled by government," he added.

Romney did not call Obama a socialist, but the Red Menace cropped up in his speech through a verbal slip, when he said Obama "entered into an agreement with the Soviets, excuse me, with Russia" in the nuclear arms START treaty that effectively required the United States to reduce its weapons stockpile while allowing Russia to increase it's stockpile.