SALEM — Small business leaders fired many questions at presidential hopeful Mitt Romney during a round table discussion Monday in Salem.

Above all, people wanted to know what Romney would do to make things better for business.

“We hear that it’s small business that is the economic engine for this economy; we make the investments with our hard-earned capital,” said Tom Desmet, founder and president of Mosaic Technology, at the morning event. “Yet all too often there are increasing costs for us to remain in business and fund growth and give good benefits. It’s becoming more and more of a challenge.”

“We need help,” he said.

Desmet’s Salem-based IT services business played host to the morning round table session. Romney joined about a dozen other local small business leaders to discuss his plans to turn the economy around.

Romney highlighted the importance of both expanding and protecting trade rights, citing intellectual property theft abroad and currency manipulation as a major concerns.

He called out China as a major offender in both categories.

“I don’t see how you can have a trade relationship on an open basis with another nation if they are stealing a large part of what it is you sell,” he said. “If you go into China, software, for instance, is regularly being pirated; entertainment is being pirated, not necessarily by the government, but by enterprises that are managed and regulated by the government. That’s something we just can’t continue to allow.”

Romney said he would work to reduce corporate taxes to 25 percent, while cutting what he called the “burden” of “outdated” regulations.

Peter Rayno, regional manager of Enterprise Bank, asked Romney what he could do to prevent another financial meltdown and to protect “Main Street” banks from feeling the effects.

“We never wrote a sub-prime mortgage. We never bought Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac stock. We’re well capitalized,” said Rayno. “However our FDIC premiums since the financial meltdown, which were $100,000, this year are going to be $1.9 million. That doesn’t even talk about the regulatory burdens Main Street banks have been saddled with and to a great degree this meltdown was not our responsibility.”

Romney said some regulations — like a capital requirement for different asset classes or rules against providing mortgages without income statements — would be necessary.

Still he said the Dodd-Frank financial reform act went too far and in wrong directions.

“In some respects, (Dodd-Frank) doesn’t deal with the very things that need to be addressed, but instead is putting bigger and bigger burdens — and I’m seeing nods from the bankers — on issues and concerns that the government has but that the market didn’t feel,” he said, acknowledging audience members in the room.

Romney said his first action if elected would be to issue waivers from the health care reform law, allowing states to craft their own health care plans.

“I think it unconstitutional for (Obama) to impose a one-size-fits-all plan,” he said. “Massachusetts has its solution; New Hampshire has its solution and Mississippi has its solution. What works in Massachusetts is not going to work in Texas.”

Romney said he thought the best way to reduce the cost of health care was to introduce more competition, creating a freer market for cost and quality comparisons.

Still, he said he opposed an over-arching, mandatory solution.

“I’m not looking to impose the Romney vision for competitive health care on the nation the way Obama would,” he said. “I would instead say let states experiment with this and try their own reimbursement system to allow providers to compete and see what kind of impact it has.”

Democrats Monday criticized Romney’s record on jobs, saying Massachusetts actually lost jobs during his years as governor.

“In good economic times, Mitt Romney had a failed record here,” said John Walsh, Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman. “There is a remarkable and consistent record that shows jobs and Mitt Romney don’t go together.”

New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Raymond Buckley said Romney is not interacting often or freely enough with voters. He said access to Romney events is too controlled.

“Things, I think, look very dim for him unless he gets out there and starts talking to real people and answering the tough questions,” Buckley said.

Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said Romney has been in close contact with the voters. He said a Democratic Party tracker was able to attend Romney’s Concord event simply by signing a registration sheet.

“The governor is going to run a traditional campaign, person-to-person, town-to-town, and voters can expect to see Gov. Romney over the summer months. He knows the best way to reach voters is through personal contact, not through a TV lens,” Williams said.

— Tom Fahey contributed to this story.