An opinion by Sarah Tarver
News editor
The Republican primaries are almost half over, as far as delegates go, and with Santorum dropping out of the race there are only three candidates who are still in the running.
According to The Washington Post’s Republican Primary Tracker, Mitt Romney is leading with 684 delegates so far, which means he only needs 460 more delegates in order to get on the ballot.
Rick Santorum had 270 delegates before dropping out of the race, and those will not be reallocated.
Newt Gingrich is in third at this time with 136 so far, so he would need to 1,010 of the remaining votes.
The final candidate holding on is Ron Paul, who has 52 votes currently and would need to sweep 1,092 of the remaining 1,143 delegates.
Most everyone has assumed that Romney has already won the ticket, but I like to hold out hope that Paul can pull ahead in an amazing show and take it from him.
For the purposes of this column I will just look at Romney and Obama, as it is most likely, however much I do not like it, going to be the two of them on the ballot.
The economy is a bit of a touchy subject at the moment, but it is also one of the most important issues in this election.
Romney has an economic plan that “seeks to reduce taxes, spending, regulation, and government programs. It seeks to increase trade, energy production, human capital, and labor flexibility,” according to his campaign website, http://www.mittromney.com.
Obama has already instituted his economic plan which has, according to his website, http://www.barackobama.com, “added back more than 4.1 million private sector jobs and seen 25 straight months of job growth”
According to the Department of Education, Obama is also working to institute changes to No Child Left Behind in order to strengthen the education system. At this time those changes have not been set. Of course, we will have to wait and see whether those changes help or hurt the education system, although it would be really difficult to make it any worse than before.
Meanwhile, according to Romney’s site his plan for education reform is to take “the best ideas from states that are succeeding and replicating them across the country.”
The site also says, “Mitt Romney believes that the long-term strategy for getting America’s economy back on track is ensuring a world class education for American students.”
Romney’s home state of Massachusetts is ranked number one in education, but once again, there is no telling whether or not the ideas can be broadened to the Nation.
Obamacare has been under fire ever since it was passed and was recently taken to the Supreme Court.
The Court has made its decision, but we won’t see it for another couple of months.
Meanwhile Romney’s take on healthcare is to reverse what Obamacare did. His site says “On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all fifty states,” said Romney’s site.
“He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible.”
Of course, depending on the Supreme Courts decision, Obamacare might be over anyway.
The final topic for today is the national budget. Neither candidate specifically talks about the budget, but the budget has been set for 2013, and the information on it can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget.
One thing that is specified is that “The President’s 2013 Budget is built around the idea that our country does best when everyone gets a fair shot, does their fair share, and plays by the same rules.”
We will see if this is the case when the time comes.