Rick Santorum

Richard John "Rick" Santorum was born in 1958 in Winchester, Virginia and grew up mainly outside Pittsburgh. The second of three children, Santorum had a strong Catholic upbringing by his mother who was a nurse, and his father who was a psychologist. Santorum received undergraduate and law degrees from Penn State, and an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh. Santorum served as a US senator from Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2007, and a US congressman before that. After leaving the Senate in 2007, he started working at a conservative think tank as a consultant. He is married with 7 kids, the youngest of whom is a special-needs child. Santorum ran for president in 2012 as a republican candidate, but was the runner-up to Mitt Romney. In 2015, he announced his plans to seek the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election. This time around, Santorum's poll numbers have been consistently low, but he is optimistic he can gain momentum three weeks out.

Campaign Website

Tax Reform

The 20/20 Flat Tax Plan

• Repeal the tax code
• 20% flat tax on individual income, with no marriage penalty, death tax, alternative minimum tax
• 20% flat tax on business income
• Dramatically downsize the IRS
• Deductible capital investments
• Fully Repeal Obamacare
• "Tariffs only hurt working men and women." [1]
• "If you look at my flat tax, it actually takes the best of what many have been advocating for a long time, which is a strong pro-growth tax code. We have a system that has a low single rate, but we take care of American families. I'm talking about $2,750 per person. That means a family of four has a $11,000 dollar tax credit. " [2]

Jobs and Business Policy

2020 Clear Vision for America

• "In our plan, the 2020 Clear Vision for America, we increase growth by 1% a year. So we go from 2.3 to 3.3, in repealing ObamaCare, it's another .7. So you're looking at 4% growth rate. And unlike Donald Trump and Bobby Jindal, we don't add $10 trillion to the deficit. Our plan, while it creates as many jobs and grows the economy as much as theirs does, we are a revenue-neutral plan because I believe that we need to reduce the size of government, yes, but we also need to reduce our deficit." [3]

Shrink federal government

• Audit the Federal Reserve
• "I'm the one on this stage that has actually gone to Washington, said we would shrink government, said we would shake things up and actually delivered for the conservative cause, everything from welfare reform, which was the largest, most significant accomplishment in the last 25 years for conservatism." [4]

Make America #1 in manufacturing, to bring back jobs

• Provide companies with a 100% income exemption to be phased out over two years, with tax deductions for capital investments
• Increase minimum wage by $0.50 per year for three years
• "Fewer than 1% of Americans earn minimum wage; let it go up." [5]
• "GOP must focus on opportunities for middle and lower class." [6]
• "The word "economy" comes from the Greek "oikis" which means family. The family is the first economy. And the one thing that we do not talk about enough is how stable families are vitally important for the middle of America to be prosperous and to grow and be safe. And I will have policies, not just tax policies, but others that will make sure that families are strong again in America." [7]

Health Policy

• Pro life

Entitlement Programs

• Introduce work requirements for means-tested entitlement programs, including the federal food stamps program
• Cut means-tested entitlement programs by 10% across the board, freeze them for four years,and block grant them to States

Fully Repeal Obamacare

• Reform and strengthen Medicare and Social Security so they are fiscally sustainable for seniors and future generations
• Change Medicaid to block-grant system
• Get rid of Obamacare so small insurers can operate more effectively

Middle East

• "FactCheck: Yes, ISIS declared fatwa to kill disabled kids."

Trade

• Negotiate Free Trade Agreements

Immigration

Illegal Immigration

• Seal the Mexican border with an American-made wall
• Rescind Obama-Biden measure that allows for executive amnesty
• Veto legislation that creates amnesty

Legal Immigration

• Reduce legal immigration by 25%
• Implement biometric tracking system for every immigrant who enters the States
• End automatic citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants in the United States
• "We've brought in 35 million legal and illegal immigrants over the last 20 years, more than any period in American history, yet we have low wages, low participation. We aren't providing the training and the investment in our workers and we're bringing in people to compete against low wage workers. We have to make sure that we are not flooding this country with competition for low wage workers." [8]

Environmental

• Approve the Keystone Pipeline for jobs and energy security
• Open up market access to all forms of domestic fuel production
• Give states the freedom to choose where they want to explore for oil and natural gas and to set their own regulations for hydrofracking