Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney says the time has come to stop the economic stimulus program, contending that it has not worked as the Obama administration planned.

Three days after the Obama White House touted the program as creating or saving some 650,000 jobs, Romney said in a nationally broadcast interview that "the stimulus that the president and the Congress passed is not what's helped the economy."

Romney said on CBS's "The Early Show" that the administration's stimulus plan "didn't work" and he said the reason things seem to be ticking up in the business world is because the "private sector" has regained its equilibrium on its own.