Rick Santorum Wins Colorado, Minnesota: What Are His Positions?

Rick Santorum's stunning three-state sweep on Tuesday has revived his insurgent campaign, which had faded since its initial surge in Iowa. Now all eyes are on him to see if he can keep it going long enough to challenge Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination.

Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, is best known for his hard-line stances on social issues: abortion is wrong even in cases of rape, incest or threat to the mother's life; birth control is a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be; homosexuality is comparable to bestiality and pedophilia. But his presidential campaign has forced him to branch out in order to convince Republican voters that he is not a one-trick pony -- that he is not just a strong social-policy candidate, but a viable economic- and foreign-policy candidate as well.

Here is an overview of Santorum's positions on a variety of issues. For a more detailed profile, click here.

ECONOMIC ISSUES

Entitlements:

- Raise the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare

- Change the formula for cost-of-living adjustments

- Prohibit the use of surplus Social Security funds for other purposes

- Supported U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's, R-Wis., plan to privatize Medicare

- Apply entitlement reforms not just to future recipients, but to people currently receiving benefits

Health care:

- Repeal the 2010 health care law, which he calls the most dangerous piece of legislation in many generations

- Allow insurers to charge more for pre-existing conditions

- Standard health insurance should not cover routine care or general maintenance

- Claimed Americans die not for lack of insurance, but because they make poor decisions and don't go to the doctor when they need to

Job creation:

- Proposes five-point plan: shrink the federal government, reform the tax code, loosen regulations, shore up global markets and allow more energy exploration

- Pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution

- Cap the federal government at 18 percent of gross domestic product

- Repeal 2010 health care law, Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law, Sarbanes-Oxley public companies law and various Environmental Protection Agency regulations

- Authorize oil drilling and other energy projects in currently protected areas, e.g., the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Gulf of Mexico

Taxes:

- Consolidate income tax brackets from six to two: 10 percent and 28 percent

- Reduce corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 17.5 percent

- Exempt manufacturers from corporate income taxes to discourage outsourcing

- Reduce capital gains and dividends tax rate from 15 percent to 12 percent

- Repeal the estate tax and alternative minimum tax

- Allow multinational corporations to repatriate overseas earnings at a 5 percent rate

FOREIGN POLICY

Afghanistan:

- No timeline for troop withdrawal

- Send more resources to support the troops

- Base all decisions on the advice of generals

Iran:

- Increase funding to pro-democracy opposition groups

- Freeze Iranian officials' bank accounts and revoke their visas

- Treat Iranian nuclear scientists as enemy combatants

- Sanction the Iranian central bank

- Try to weaken Iran's alliance with Syria

- Expand the U.S.' nuclear missile defense system

- Support any military efforts by Israel against Iran

SOCIAL ISSUES

Abortion:

- Overturn Roe v. Wade and ban abortion under federal law

- No exceptions for rape, incest or threat to the mother's life

- Press criminal charges against abortion providers, but not women who seek abortions

- Ban contraception, because it encourages extramarital and non-procreative sex

Education:

- Do not eliminate the Department of Education, but shrink it drastically

- Only federal roles should be supporting civil rights protections, enabling essential research and promoting equality of opportunity

- Leave education policy up to parents, local schools and states, in that order

- Repeal the No Child Left Behind Act and allow state and local officials to set educational standards

- Encourage charter schools and homeschooling

Gay rights:

- Amend the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman

- Do not allow states to legalize same-sex marriage or civil unions; the family is too important to invoke the 10th Amendment

- Government should be allowed to restrict consensual homosexual activity, e.g., with sodomy laws

- Compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia

Immigration:

- Build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border

- Make English the official national language

- No public benefits for illegal immigrants

- No amnesty or route to citizenship for illegal immigrants

- Encourage legal immigration

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Are there other issues you'd like to know Santorum's position on? Let us know in the comments section.