Mitt Romney

On the Record

On education:

Mitt Romney's education policies are not available on his campaign website. However, 2012.republican-candidates.org lists some of Romney's positions on education. According to the site, Romney says: There is a need to revamp the education system; education should not be confined to a teacher's union only; better pay for quality teachers would improve quality teaching; English immersion in schools stressing English should begin at a young age; he supports the concept of 'No Child left behind'; he supports setting up charter educational institutions and conducting immediate third-party audit in underperforming schools; he supports the elimination of the federal Department of Education; and stressed on teaching the importance of economics and family values. Read more about Romney's plan.

On the economy:

Mitt Romney's "Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth" includes "59 policy proposals that will get America back to work." Many of the steps listed on his website are plans to cut federal spending, such as: Immediately cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent; form and restructure Medicaid as block grant to states; align wages and benefits of government workers with market rates; reduce federal workforce by 10 percent via attrition; and undertake fundamental restructuring of government programs and services. Romney's plan also includes plans to cap and balance the federal budget, like capping federal spending at 20 percent of GDP and pursuing a Balanced Budget Amendment. Read more about Romney's plan.

On health care:

Mitt Romney sums up his stance on health care on his website saying that "our next president must repeal Obamacare and replace it with market-based reforms that empower states and individuals and reduce health care costs." Romney breaks his policy into five points: Repeal and replace President Obama's health care law; give states the responsibility, flexibility, and resources to act; empower individuals to purchase their own insurance; reform the broken medical liability system; and make health care more like a market and less like a government program. Read more about Romney's health care plan.

On national security:

Mitt Romney summarizes his foreign policy plan, titled "An American Century: A Strategy to Secure America's Enduring Interests and Ideals," on his website. Romney says that "America faces a bewildering array of threats and opportunities." As part of the summary, he lists eight actions for the first hundred days, they are to: Restore America's naval credibility; strengthen and repair relationships with steadfast allies; enhance our deterrent against Iran; commit to a robust national missile defense system; establish a single point of responsibility for all soft power resources in the Middle East; launch campaign for economic opportunity in Latin America; conduct a full review of our transition in Afghanistan; and order interagency initiative on cybersecurity. Read more about Romney's plan.

On energy:

Mitt Romney's position on energy can be found as part of the jobs plan on his website. Romney says he "will make every effort to safeguard the environment, but he will be mindful at every step of also protecting the jobs of American workers." His plan has three key components: Significant regulatory reform, increasing production, and research and development. Subcomponents of his regulatory reform plan include to: Establish fixed timetables for all resource development approvals; ensure that environmental laws properly account for cost; amend Clean Air Act; and expand NRC capabilities for approval of additional nuclear reactor designs. For increasing production, Romney's plan includes to: Open America's energy reserves for development; support construction of pipelines to bring Canadian oil; and prevent overregulation of shale gas development and extraction. Romney's plan for research and development is to concentrate alternative energy funding on basic research and utilize long-term, apolitical funding mechanisms like ARPA-E for basic research. Read more about Romney's plan.

On immigration:

Mitt Romney's stance on immigration is contained in his foreign policy plan "Mitt Romney's strategy to ensure an American century." Under the subhead of Latin America, his website says, "Mitt Romney will complete a border fence protecting our southern frontier from infiltration by illegal immigrants, transnational criminal networks, and terrorists." Read more about Romney's plan.