A Last-Minute Guide to the 2016 Election

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

With the 2016 election literally around the corner, the two candidates have American voters on their toes. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump have both made this election one like never before. On November 8, the nation’s future will be decided and one of these presidential candidates will win the election. However, all the emotion and media tumult among these candidates has overshadowed their true reasons for running for office. Personality aside, the issues are what matter most, and many Americans don’t know them well enough. Here’s a breakdown of this election’s most important topics:

Hillary Clinton:

• Economy:
  • Make a major investment in our country’s infrastructure
  • Strengthen American manufacturing with a $10 billion investment
  • Pursue trade policies that put U.S. job creation first
  • Support small businesses with better access to capital, cutting red tape, opening new markets and providing tax relief
  • Put a “fair share surcharge” on millionaires and billionaires so they’re not paying lower taxes than a middle class American family
  • Close tax loopholes and special breaks that make it possible for the wealthy and corporations
  • Defend current Wall Street reform and strengthen it
  • Close the “carried interest” loophole for Wall Street money managers – acting without Congress if it will not move forward on its own
  • Offer relief to the middle class from rising costs – such as affordable child care, health care and education 
  • Fight to expand social security and medicare and paid family leave
  • Make the minimum wage a living wage and fight for equal pay
  • Provide an opportunity for free community college and free in-state tuition for a family that makes under $125,000 per year

• National Security:
  • Fight on ISIS: Strengthen the air campaign, support local Arab and Kurdish ground forces, work with tech companies and European Intelligence to thwart jihadist terroism
  • Use diplomacy and development to solve problems including:
    • Vigorously enforce the nuclear agreement with Iran and implement a broader strategy to confront Iran’s bad behavior in the region
    • Build stronger ties with Cuba and America
  • Strengthen and maintain relationships and treaties with our allies
  • Hold China accountable and stand up to Putin
  • Gun Control:
    • Background checks on gun sales by eliminating gun show and internet loophole
    • no gun sales to those on the terrorist watch list
    • work to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill
    • work to take military-style weapons off the street

• Immigration:
  • Move forward with comprehensive immigration reform
  • Close private detention centers
  • Defend Obama’s Dreamer and DAPA Executive Orders
  • End three year- and 10 year-bans, especially for those with family members with different different citizenship or immigration statuses
  • Allow all families to “buy” insurance plans under the affordable care act

• Environment:
  • Defend, implement, and extend smart pollution and efficiency standards, including the Clean Power Plan Clean Power Plan to fight climate change
  • Launch a $60 billion Clean Energy Challenge to partner with states, cities, and rural communities to cut carbon pollution and expand clean energy, including for low-income families
  • Invest in clean energy infrastructure, innovation, manufacturing and workforce development
  • Set national goals to eliminate lead poisoning within five years and create an Environmental and Climate Justice Task Force.
  • Cut energy waste and methane emissions
  • Promote conservation and collaborative stewardship.

Donald Trump:

• Economy:
  • Promote major infrastructure rebuilding program including private infrastructure investment (with tax credits) and providing maximum flexibility to the states
  • Pro Growth Tax plan with 3 tax brackets instead of 7–Cutting taxes to all income groups
  • Lower the business tax rate to 15% from 35%
  • A 10% tax on repatriation of Corporate profits
  • Child care deduction for children up to 13 years of age for average child care expense with an income tax cap
  • Eliminate the carried interest loophole for Wall Street and the death tax
  • A complete regulatory overhaul and moratorium on all new regulations
  • Renegotiate or withdraw from NAFTA and no approval on Trans Pacific Partnership
  • China will be labeled a currency manipulator
  • “Penny Plan” will reduce the previous year’s defense spending by 1% each year

• National Security:
  • Increase the amount of active soldiers in the military to 540,000
  • Rebuild the Navy to a goal of 350 ships
  • Provide the U.S. Air Force with the 1,200 fighter aircraft
  • Increase the size of the Marine Corps
  • Invest in a Missile Defense system
  • Coalition military operations with allies to defeat ISIS
  • Pay for all the above by eliminating waste in Pentagon
  • Work with Congress to fully repeal the defense sequester

• Immigration:
  • Ensure open jobs are offered to American Workers first
  • Begin working on a physical wall across the Mexican border that Mexico will pay for
  • Move criminal aliens out immediately
  • Reverse Obama’s DACA and DAPA executive orders so that anyone who enters the U.S. illegally is subject to deportation
  • Suspend the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur
  • End Sanctuary Cities (cities designated to not prosecute undocumented individuals who live in them)
  • Ensure that other countries take their people back when we order them deported
  • Turn off the jobs and benefits magnet

• Environment:
  • Make clean water a high priority. By developing a long-term water infrastructure plan with city, state and federal leaders to upgrade aging water systems.
  • Will increase shale, oil and gas and coal production.
  • Eliminate some regulations, like the Waters of The U.S. Rule. We will also scrap the EPA’s Clean Power Plan
  • No mention of global warming on Donald Trump website, but has questioned its existence in his speeches and media interviews. (According to Politifact, Donald Trump’s tweeted Nov 6, 2012: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.)

Sources: hillaryclinton.com

Sources: donaldjtrump.com