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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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Newt Gingrich says on his website that "Creating jobs and getting back to 4% unemployment is the most important step to a balanced budget." In his "Jobs and Growth Plan," Gingrich says America only works when Americans are working. He says his strategy is similar to the policies used when he was Speaker of the House to balance the budget, pay down the debt and create jobs. The plan includes: Stop the 2013 tax increases; make the United States the most desirable location for new business investment; move toward an optional flat tax of 15%; strengthen the dollar; remove obstacles to job creation imposed by destructive and ineffective regulations, programs and bureaucracies; implement an American energy policy; balance the budget; repeal and replace Obamacare; and fundamental reform of entitlement programs.
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Newt Gingrich says on his website, "We must repeal and replace the left's big government health bill with real solutions that will lower costs and improve health outcomes." Gingrich proposes a "Patient Power" plan that includes 13 aspect: Make health insurance more affordable and portable; create more choices in Medicare; reform Medicaid; cover the sickest; protect consumers; extend HSAs; reward quality care; reward health and wellness; stop health care fraud; stop junk lawsuits; speed medical breakthroughs to patients by reforming the FDA; inform patients and consumers of price and quality; and invest in research for health solutions.
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On his website, Newt Gingrich says, "We need an honest national dialogue and a determination to be candid about our opponents, honest about the problems, and passionately committed to the survival of America as a free country." Gingrich says keeping Americans safe is the most important duty of government and he has seven principles in his policy. The seven principles are to: Understand our enemies and tell the truth about them; think big about the nation's strategy for defeating radical Islamism; know our values; use military force judiciously and with clear, obtainable objectives understood by Congress; implement an American Energy Plan; secure the border; and incentivize math and science education in America.
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On his website, Newt Gingrich says, "We must envision a 21st century system of lifetime learning more flexible, more productive, more individualized and more capable than any bureaucracy could achieve." Gingrich says in order to remain competitive with China and India, America must commit to improving education, especially in math and science. He lists ten key points for how he intends to do this: Empower parents to pick the right school for their children; institute a Pell-Grant style system for Kindergarten through 12th grade; require transparency and accountability about achievement; implement a "no limits" charter system; establish a pay for performance system; welcome business talent in our communities into the classroom; restore American history and values into the classroom; protect the rights of home-schooled children; encourage states to think outside outdated boundaries of educations; and shrink the federal Department of Education.
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On his website, Newt Gingrich says, "Contrary to popular belief, America has more energy than any nation on earth. All that's keeping us from becoming energy independent is a lack of political will to do so." Gingrich says that today's high gas and energy prices are a function of bad government policies. He has a six point American Energy Plan that strives to: Remove bureaucratic and legal obstacles; end the ban on oil shale development; give coastal states federal royalty revenue sharing; reduce frivolous lawsuits; finance cleaner energy research; and replace the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Newt Gingrich says on his website that "It is essential that every native-born American and every immigrant learn about this exceptional heritage and our exceptional history." His immigration policy is based on three principles: No "comprehensive" plan can work; under no circumstance can a path to citizenship be created which would allow those who have broken the law to receive precedence over those who waited to become residents legally; and reconciling the goal of legality with the reality that there are millions of immigrants currently here outside the law. He offers "10 Steps to a Legal Nation": Control the border; create a 21st century visa program; "in-source" the best brains in the world; allow foreigners who want to spend money, invest and create jobs in America to do so; there has to be a legal guest worker program; create a path to earned legality for some of the people here outside the law; deportation of criminals and gang members; ensure that new citizens and young Americans learn American history and the key principles of American Exceptionalism; English must be the official language of the government; and young non-citizens who came to the United States outside the law should have the same right to join the military and earn citizenship.
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Ron Paul says on his website that the severe economic crisis America has experienced over the past several years is just the tip of the iceberg if the nation does not immediately change course. Paul says he will lead the way out of the crisis by: Vetoing any unbalanced budget Congress approves; refusing to further raise the debt ceiling so politicians can no longer spend recklessly; fighting to fully audit the Federal Reserve System, which has enabled the over 95% reduction of what the American dollar can buy; legalizing sound money; ending the corporate stranglehold on the White House; driving down gas prices by allowing offshore drilling, abolishing highway motor fuel taxes, increasing mileage reimbursement rates, and offering tax credits to individuals and businesses for the use of production of natural gas vehicles; eliminating the income, capital gains, and death taxes; and opposing all unfunded mandates and unnecessary regulations on small businesses and entrepreneurs.
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On his website, Ron Paul says that "the answer to our nation's health care crisis lies in freedom -- not force." He list nine points that he would work with Congress to accomplish, including repealing ObamaCare, allowing purchase of health insurance across state lines, providing tax credits and deductions for all medical expenses, and guaranteeing that what is taken from taxpayers to pay for Medicare and Medicaid is not raided for other purposes.
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Ron Paul says on his website that national defense is the single most important responsibility the Constitution entrusts to the federal government. Paul says today that our military is stretched too thin without a clear mission. He adds that the country's current policies provide incentive for more to take up arms against us. Paul's national defense policy would be to: Make securing our borders the top national security priority; avoid long and expensive land wars; use intelligence efforts toward legitimate threats and not spying on innocent Americans through things like the Patriot Act; end the nation-building; ask Congress to declare war before one is waged; only send military into conflict with a clear mission; ensure veterans care and benefits; eliminate waste in a trillion-dollar military budget; ultimately abolish the TSA; and stop taking money through taxes to give to dictators through foreign aid.
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Ron Paul focuses on homeschooling on his website when discussing education. Paul says,"no nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family does." As President, Paul says he would veto any legislation that encroaches on homeschooling parents' rights. Beyond putting parents back in charge, Paul wants to offer tax credits for homeschooling. During his time in Congress, Paul has introduced legislation to: Help parents better educate their children by providing parents with a $5,000 per child tax credit for tutors, books, computers, and other K-12 related educational needs and ensure that the federal government treats high school diplomas earned through homeschooling the same as other high school diplomas.
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Ron Paul says on his website that the free market is the solution to America's energy needs. He adds that high gas prices are due to federal policies. Paul says he would lead the fight to: Remove restrictions on drilling, so companies can tap into the oil in America; repeal the federal tax on gasoline, saving Americans 18 cents per gallon; lift government roadblocks to the use of coal and nuclear power; eliminate the ineffective EPA; and make tax credits available for the purchase and production of alternative fuel technologies.
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On his website, Ron Paul says "it just doesn't make sense to fight terrorists abroad while leaving our front door unlocked." Paul says he understands how valuable legal immigrants are to America, but he has five points to stopping illegal immigration. Paul says he will work to implement the following reforms: Enforce border security; no amnesty of illegal immigrants because it will only encourage more law-breaking; abolish the welfare state because taxpayers cannot continue to pay the high costs to sustain this powerful incentive for illegal immigration; end birthright citizenship; and protect lawful immigrants.
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