OCTOBER 2020

VOTER guide
Key Positions: Donald Trump and Joe Biden
BY PAUL NATINSKY
The Nov. 3 election between
Republican President Donald
Trump and Democrat Joe
Biden will give American voters a
choice between two candidates with
drastically different views of the world
and divergent approaches to tackling
some of the biggest issues facing the
country.
Trump, like many fellow
Republicans, supports tax reductions
and regulatory cuts as a strategy to
boost the economy. He frames himself
as a conservative champion in the
nation’s ongoing culture wars. The
president offers little detail about
how he would pull the levers of
government in a second term.
Biden sounds every bit the
Democratic standard-bearer as he
frames the federal government as
the collective force to combat the
coronavirus, rebuild the economy
and address centuries of institutional
racism and systemic inequalities. A
veteran of national politics, Biden
also touts his deal-making past as
proof he can do it again as president.
Here is a detailed look at their
policies and proposals in key areas.
Immigration
trump: Since his campaign in 2016,
Trump has made multiple promises
to reduce illegal immigration. He
incorporated a “zero-tolerance” policy
that enabled the criminal prosecution
of suspected illegal border-crossers
that resulted in family separations. It
was reported “Nearly 3,000 children
were separated from their parents,”
according to HRW.com. Trump took
the measures of declaring a national
emergency to obtain funding for a
wall on the southern border between
Mexico and the United States. In his
efforts to decrease illegal immigration,
the statistics support that in the past
several years there has been an overall
decrease.
The president has also proposed
incorporating a “merit-based” system
that would only allow migrants with
job skills to enter the United States.
This would dramatically reform
immigration policy since it would no
longer allow family ties to determine
immigration status.
biden: Being a strong opponent of
Trump’s reformed immigration policy,
Joe Biden
Mr. Biden likely would reverse it.
The Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program would return, along
with a program to help undocumented
immigrants receive citizenship. In
place of Trump’s criminal prosecution
for all illegal border crossings, Mr.
Biden supports a 100-day moratorium
on deportations. Only those charged
with a serious crime would be
deported. However, to accomplish
comprehensive immigration reform
Democrats would have to hold the
House. Immigration would have to
become an immediate legislative
priority and many lawmakers feel it is
best to diverge from a comprehensive
reform to more bipartisan actions.
COVID-19
biden: Biden draws some of his
sharpest contrasts with Trump on the
pandemic, arguing that the presidency
and federal government exist for such
crises. Trump, by contrast, has largely
shifted responsibility to governors.
Biden endorses generous federal
spending to help businesses and
individuals, along with state and local
governments, deal with the financial
cliffs of the pandemic slowdown.
He has promised aggressive use of
the Defense Production Act, the
wartime law a president can use to
direct certain private-sector activity.
Additionally, Biden promises to
elevate the government’s scientists
and physicians to communicate a
consistent message to the public, and
he would have the U.S. rejoin the
World Health Organization. He is
also willing to use executive power for
a national mask mandate, even if its
enforcement is questionable.
trump: After months of insisting
Donald Trump
that the worst days of the pandemic
have passed, Trump recently
acknowledged that the pandemic
may “get worse before it gets better”
as many states — including several
critical to his path to 270 Electoral
College votes — have seen a surge in
the virus.
Trump is again holding regular
briefings to get his message out on
the virus and other matters. Trump
believes that a key to economic
recovery from the virus is fully
reopening schools — though
Americans are wary. Only about
1 in 10 Americans think day care
centers, preschools or K-12 schools
should have opened this fall without
restrictions, according to a recent
poll by The Associated Press-NORC
Center for Public Affairs.
Trump also says he’s “pretty damn
certain” that vaccines and therapeutics
for the virus are coming in the not-sodistant
future — a game changer as
Americans and the world seek a glide
path to normalcy. Congress approved
about $3 trillion in coronavirus relief
in March and April, and Democrats,
Republicans and the White House are
negotiating another significant round
of funding. The package, however,
will not include a payroll tax cut —
something that Trump badly wanted
but that Senate Democrats and even
some Senate Republicans balked at
including.
Economy
trump: Improving the economy
has been a focal point for Trump.
To decrease the trade gap, Trump
emphasizes the importance of creating
more deals with leading trading
partners.
Under Trump’s administration,
the economy has gradually grown. In
the last couple of years the economy
has grown around 2-3 percent and
job growth has matched how it was
under President Obama, according
to MarketsInsider. In particular,
manufacturing jobs have increased.
The coal industry has seen significant
improvement. The stock market has
also benefited. Trump claims that the
economy is the “best” in U.S history.
biden: Biden pitches sweeping
federal action as necessary to avoid
an extended recession or depression
and to address long-standing wealth
inequality that disproportionately
affects nonwhite Americans. His
biggest-ticket plans: a $2 trillion,
four-year push intended to eliminate
carbon pollution in the U.S. energy
grid by 2035 and a new government
health insurance plan open to
all working-age Americans. He
proposes new spending on education,
infrastructure and small businesses,
along with raising the national
minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Biden would cover some but not
all of the new costs by rolling back
much of the 2017 GOP tax overhaul.
He wants a corporate income tax rate
of 28 percent (lower than before but
higher than now) and broad income
and payroll tax hikes for individuals
with more than $400,000 of annual
taxable income. All that would
generate an estimated $4 trillion or
more over 10 years.
Education
biden: Biden wants the federal
government to work with states
to make public higher education
tuition-free for any student in a
household earning up to $125,000
annually. The assistance would
extend to everyone attending twoyear
schools, regardless of income.
He also proposes sharply increasing
aid for historically Black colleges.
His overall education plans carry
a 10-year price tag of about $850
billion.
He calls for universal access
to prekindergarten programs for
3- and 4-year-olds; tripling Title I
spending for schools with higher
concentrations of students from lowincome
households; more support
for non-classroom positions like
on-campus social workers; federal
infrastructure spending for public
school buildings; and covering
schools’ costs to comply with federal
disability laws. Biden also opposes
30 CHALDEAN NEWS OCTOBER 2020