BURLINGTON, Iowa – Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Sunday that the answers to many of the nation’s problems can be found within the walls of the American home.

Romney spoke at a Father’s Day brunch in Burlington before heading to Wapello and Muscatine later in the day to wrap up a three-day visit to eastern Iowa.

“I don’t think there’s any work that goes on in America that’s more important to our future than the work that goes on within the four walls of the American home,” the former Massachusetts governor said.

Romney, among the leading GOP presidential contenders, cited his experience operating a management consulting firm and founding a private equity firm in telling supporters that he wants to bring the boardroom mind-set to Washington.

He said excessive government spending would be among his first priorities he would address as president.

Other issues Romney said he would target would be the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, affordable health insurance, education, increasing competition from Asia and the threat of jihadism.

Romney said he supports a market-driven approach to improving health care coverage and said the U.S. should embrace the opportunity compete globally.

He also repeated a message he delivered earlier in the weekend, saying he would increase the military by 100,000 troops and increase military spending.

Romney also touched on immigration, saying the nation’s immigration laws need to be fixed.

He criticized the most recent immigration reform bill that failed to get approval in the Senate.

“It does not make sense to me that we are even contemplating another round of amnesty in this country, he said.

The measure included a temporary worker program and a provision that provides a path to citizenship for immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Another GOP presidential hopeful, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, was a chief supporter of the measure, and his campaign took Romney’s comments as a personal attack.

“This week alone, Mitt Romney is on both sides of campaign finance reform, gay marriage, abortion, pardons, stem cell research, and immigration,” McCain spokesman Danny Diaz said in an e-mail Sunday. “The former Massachusetts governor seems incapable of taking principled stands, and will say and do anything in his quest for the nomination.”