Santorum unveils zero-zero-zero plan

Rick Santorum came out with his own economic plan Friday to top the 9-9-9 plan pushed by Herman Cain.

“I’ve got a better plan. It’s the zero-zero-zero plan,” the GOP presidential candidate and former senator told the Value Voters Summit.

{mosads}Santorum said his plan would levy zero taxes on repatriation of funds invested overseas, cut corporate taxes for manufacturers to zero and eliminate every regulation put in place by President Obama.

Santorum has long been a favorite son of the socially conservative voter bloc that flocks to Washington every year for the Value Voters Summit, but has yet to define himself as independent thinker on economic issues within the Republican presidential field.

Cain’s promotion of a plan to assign a 9 percent sales tax, income tax and capital gains tax has coincided with his rise in the polls, where he is now within striking distance of Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

All the major presidential candidates except Jon Huntsman are scheduled to address the Value Voters Summit, where Santorum issued an impassioned plea to put issues of morality back into the discussion about how to move the country forward.

With his wife and children behind him on the stage, Santorum told an intimately personal story about getting the results of his fourth child’s sonogram just days after a public fight with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) over partial-birth abortion.

“The doctor looked over at me and Karen and said, ‘Your son has a fatal defect and is going to die,'” Santorum recalled. “We were stunned. We were angry. But mostly we just cried. But we didn’t give up. We didn’t end his life. We gave him a name that very day: Gabriel Michael.”

The child died in his arms two hours after being delivered, Santorum said.

“Our founders understood that true happiness can only be found in doing what God’s will is in our lives,” Santorum said. “That is what we have to get back to.”

Santorum, who is in seventh place among the GOP hopefuls according to an ABC/Washington Post poll released Oct. 4, also admonished Obama for refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and accused him of instructing military chaplains to perform gay marriages.

“Not only did the president not defend the law, he has now instructed people in the military to break the law,” he said.

Obama has authorized military chaplains to perform same-sex marriages only in states where it has been legalized. Chaplains can refuse if it violates their personal beliefs.

“We must fight in every state to make sure that marriage remains between one man and one woman, and as president, I will do that,” he said.

Santorum has had an antagonistic relationship with the gay community dating back to his days as a senator representing Pennsylvania.