The two leading candidates for the Republican nomination for President elevated a battle over each other’s past records on taxes and spending in Tuesday afternoon’s televised debate.

MSNBC’s moderator Chris Matthews asked former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to describe their differences on taxes and spending at the debate held in Dearborn, Michigan.

“I brought down taxes by 17 percent, under him [Romney] they went up 7 percent,” Giuliani said.

Romney called that accusation “baloney.”

“If you live in New York City, your state and city combined [taxes] could reach as high as 10 percent,” Romney shot back. “In Boston, it’s more like 5.3 percent.”

Romney charged that Giuliani “fought to keep” a $400 million commuter tax on those who traveled to New York City to work.

“I cut taxes by over $9 billion dollars. I couldn’t cut every tax… but I cut every tax I possibly could under that period of time,” Giuliani responded.

After several exchanges, Romney conceded both have worked to cut spending and brought up another point of contention. “The Club for Growth looked at my spending and said it grew 2.2 percent and said yours grew 2.8 percent,” Romney said. “The place we differ is the line-item veto.”

Romney has often bragged on the campaign trail that he used line-item veto power as Governor of Massachusetts 844 times and that he wouldn’t hesitate to similarly use that power as President.

“I believe in the line-item veto” Romney said. Continued...