With the big Jan. 31 Florida primary over, Mitt Romney has stayed ahead in the Republican race, winning the state and keeping himself as a favorite of the Republican candidacy. Although Mitt is now the front-runner for the Republican nomination, there are still 46 states left before the Republican convention.

Why is Florida such an important primary? Well, simply because the Sunshine State is very diverse and, contrary to its nickname, faces many economic challenges, such as high unemployment and high home foreclosure rates.

Now, this might be a factor in why Mitt Romney won the primary. Aside from his good presidential look, Romney has a strong economic platform. One of his obvious agendas is reducing spending and trying to undo all the trouble President Barack Obama has caused with his high spending. He also wants more job training for the population to have more qualified people working and more job opportunities.

Romney also has, as they all do, a new tax agenda. As Benjamin Franklin said, there are only two unavoidable things: death and taxes.

Romney wishes to eliminate taxes for taxpayers with adjusted gross income less than $200,000 on interest, dividends and capital gains, according to his website, mittromney.com. Now, I don’t at all believe that people should be taxed less just because they make less money. Everyone should be taxed equally. So, though I don’t agree with all his tax changes, if Romney also tries to pursue a conservative revamp of the tax system over the long term that includes lower, flatter rates on a broader base, I believe he’ll be doing some good.

With the controversial Florida primary behind us, candidates and voters are off to Missouri for the next primary on Tuesday. Although many believe the Missouri primaries don’t matter anymore, Rick Santorum has his sights set on Missouri, and many believe he will steal the show.

Now, I do have to be a little partial to Rick Santorum because he’s a big Second Amendment supporter, but he does have some other substantial qualities as well. He has some good ideas for health care reform and some military type experience, serving eight years on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Santorum also has a crazy ass economic plan, with a proposed $5 trillion cut to federal spending in order to start digging us out of debt.

In regard to his social agenda, which I know many voters hold against him, I don’t agree with it all, mainly his extreme pro-life stance. Many see this as horrible to women and unjust, but he just believes every embryo counts. Instead of pushing funding for abortion clinics, he pushed for money to go to toward organizations that help pregnant and young mothers who can’t support themselves very well, knowing full well that the reason many women get abortions is because they feel they wouldn’t be able to care for the child.

So, though I might not agree with his whole social agenda, that isn’t the most important part of running a country. Our economy is in the shitter right now, debt is constantly on the rise and people are so focused on feeling bad for those with no money they aren’t doing anything to help them get jobs to actually make money and not rely on taxpayers.

Romney and Santorum both propose strong economic plans in hopes to dig us out of this debt. Because our country is so deep in that debt, we borrow money from other countries. I mean hello, we’re America the great, we shouldn’t have to be borrowing money from anyone. Our economy should be a top focus.

So you might be saying to yourself, “Man, the Republican candidates suck, they all love abortions and religion,” but you need to get a grip on reality. These social issues really are not of top importance and the sooner young voters realize that, the better. You have to choose what’s more important for the country as a whole: the economy, not laws on abortion. But we still have until November, so anything can happen.