TRUMP vs BIDEN: A Policy Comparison

 

The Epoch Times has compiled an excellent policy comparison for the two main candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election: incumbent President and Republican nominee Donald Trump, and former Vice-President and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

I found it helpful, anyway.

(The Trump list includes actions taken already as President.)

Economy

Trump

• Grant tax credits to companies that move manufacturing back to United States, tariffs on those that don’t.
• Continue improving trade deals after USMCA, China Phase 1, South Korea, and Japan deals.
• Continue to cut regulations for businesses.
• Fund on-the-job training, apprenticeships.
• Make major investment in infrastructure.
• Launched “opportunity zones” program in 8,766 distressed areas, which, so far, have attracted $75 billion in private capital.
• Build on becoming a net energy exporter.

Biden

• Increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
• Strengthen worker organizing, collective bargaining, and unions.
• Make major investment in infrastructure focused on reducing carbon emissions.
• Make racial equity part of the mandate of the Federal Reserve.
• Will insist on strong and enforceable standards for labor, human rights, and the environment in any future trade agreements
• Will ban anonymous shell companies, expand anti-money-laundering requirements, disclosure of beneficial ownership, and greater oversight of cross-border transactions.

Taxes

Trump

• Signed tax cut legislation.
• Cut capital gains tax to 15 percent.
• Increased the estate tax basic exemption amount from $5 million to $10 million.
• Proposes a cut to payroll tax.

Biden

• Greatly increase capital gains tax to same rate as income tax.
• Increase taxes by $4 trillion over 10 years, including raising taxes on people making over $400,000 a year.

Governance

Trump

• Restore balance and vertical separation of powers between the federal and state governments.
• Promote voter ID, urging all states to join program to keep voter rolls accurate.
• Supports apportionment and redistricting based on Census count of all citizens, and not including illegal immigrants.
• Appoint more federal judges.
• Make Puerto Rico the 51st state; keep the District of Columbia as a district.
• Pass congressional term limits.
• Directed federal agencies to move out of D.C. to opportunity zones.

Biden

• Make the District of Columbia the 51st state.
• Supports removing the Confederate flag and statues of Confederate leaders from public properties.
• Establish a national commission to examine slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and racially discriminatory federal policies on income, wealth, educational, health, and employment outcomes, and to study reparations.
• Opposes Voter ID laws and supports automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, early voting, and universal vote-from-home and vote-by-mail options.
• Supports apportionment and redistricting based on Census count of everyone, including illegal immigrants.
• Supports requirement for all federal office candidates to disclose at least 10 years of tax returns.

Health Care

Trump

• Rescinded the individual mandate in Affordable Care Act and supports repealing the entire act.
• Protect those with pre-existing conditions.
• Supports health care price transparency.
• Stop “surprise billing” by banning out-of-network charges when the patient doesn’t have control over provider choice.
• Drive down prescription drug prices. Allow purchases from abroad; cut out the middlemen who negotiate drug rebates; introduce “favored nation status” where Medicare pays the lowest drug price available globally.
• Accelerated generic drug approval.
• Signed the Right to Try bill.
• Anti-abortion—curbed federal spending that even indirectly supported abortion.
• Permanently expand telehealth through Medicare payments and preserve more rural hospitals through Medicare incentives.
• Enabled short-term insurance up to a year and is expanding the use of health savings accounts.
• Allowed employers to pay premiums for employees in individual market.
• Allowed small businesses to band together to access insurance plans available to large employers.
• Declared opioid crisis a national public health emergency and focused resources on supply, demand, and treatment.

Biden

• Introduce “public option” health insurance plans run by the federal government.
• Protect and expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
• Increase tax credits toward health coverage. Give the tax credits to higher-income people who currently aren’t eligible
• Provide free health care to illegal aliens.
• Expand Medicaid in states that rejected expansion offered by ACA.
• Stop “surprise billing”—ban out-of-network charges when the patient doesn’t have control over provider choice.
• Lower drug prices. Repeal law barring Medicare from negotiating lower prices with drug corporations; government-set prices for new drugs with no competition; allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries.
• Treat abortion as a constitutional right and restore federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
• Double the federal funding to community health centers.
• Target health care companies for antitrust violations.
• Exclude drug ads from tax deductible costs for pharma companies.
• Expand national and global vaccine programs.

Education

Trump

• Support school choice—homeschooling, career and technical education, private or parochial schools, magnet schools, charter schools, online learning, and early-college high schools.
• Wants funding to follow child (currently an average of $12,000 per student per year in public school).
• Ensure First Amendment protections for students on campus.
• Sue colleges for discriminating against Asians and whites.
• Opposes Common Core and supports alternatives; supports less testing.
• Opposes school-based clinics that provide referral or counseling for abortion and contraception.
• Restore private sector student loans and decrease student costs

Biden

• Triple the funding for Title I schools, increase teacher wages.
• Double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, and social workers in schools.
• Increase federal funding for public school infrastructure.
• Provide universal Pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
• Double funding for home visiting programs for parents of young children.
• Make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all students whose family incomes are below $125,000.
• Forgive student debt for low-income and middle-class individuals who have attended public colleges and universities.

Border Security/Immigration

Trump

• Halt the diversity visa lottery program that randomly gives out 50,000 green cards annually.
• Clarify birthright citizenship to exclude illegal immigrant children and “birth tourism.”
• Possibly resubmit DACA repeal to Supreme Court.
• Continue to build 733 miles of border wall on the southern border.
• Increase merit-based immigration from 12 percent to 57 percent, and possibly higher.
• Continue Migrant Protection Protocols, where asylum-seekers who enter illegally are sent to wait in Mexico for their case to be adjudicated.
• Step up workplace enforcement of illegal workers and their employers.
• Forged cooperation agreements with Central American countries to help with regional asylum issues.
• Punish “sanctuary cities” that protect illegal immigrants from federal immigration enforcement.

Biden

• Provide a pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, including Deferred Action to Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status recipients.
• Halt border wall construction, increase screening at ports of entry.
• Widen asylum criteria, stop the Migrant Protection Protocol program, increase refugee cap to 125,000 per year (from 18,000), and vastly expand government resources for all immigrants.
• Rescind travel bans from terror-prone countries.
• Stop workplace enforcement of illegal workers and promote union organization.
• Decrease detention and Immigration and Customs Enforcement interior enforcement efforts.
• Expand temporary worker visa programs for seasonal and high-skilled workers, and provide a pathway to citizenship for agricultural workers.
• Continue family-based immigration, also known as chain migration.
• Provide green cards to foreign graduates of doctoral programs.

Infrastructure

Trump

• $1 trillion investment to fix current infrastructure, including bridges and roads, and expand rural broadband and 5G wireless infrastructure.

Biden

• $1.3 trillion over 10 years for infrastructure and Green New Deal plans.
• Speed transition to electric vehicles; install 500,000 public charging outlets.
• Implement a high-speed passenger rail system between New York and Washington, move the California high-speed rail project ahead, and begin construction of a high-speed rail system from coast to coast.
• Provide every American city with 100,000 or more residents with high-quality, zero-emissions public transportation options.

Housing

Trump

• Keep zoning decisions local, rather than through a previous administration’s federally administered Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation.
• Create program to help foster children with housing once they age out of the system.
• Use Housing and Urban Development programs to reduce homelessness, especially for veterans and families with children.

Biden

• $640 billion over 10 years for access to affordable housing.
• Create new Homeowner and Renter Bill of Rights.
• Provide Section 8 housing vouchers to all eligible families paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent.
• Eliminate local and state housing regulations that “perpetuate discrimination.”
• Withhold federal funds from states that refuse to repeal zoning regulations, with emphasis on ending single-family housing.

Environment

Trump

• Focus on clean air and water, not carbon emissions.
• Expedited environmental assessments.
• Fund national parks cleanup.
• Rejects U.N. Agenda 21 as erosive of U.S. sovereignty, and opposes any form of global tax.
• Invalidated Environmental Protection Agency’s Waters of the United States rule that federally regulated puddles and ditches on farms.
• Supports development of all forms of energy without subsidies.
• Proposes shift of environmental regulation from federal to the states and transform EPA into an independent bipartisan commission.

Biden

• Invest $1.7 trillion over 10 years for “climate and environmental justice.”
• Implement Green New Deal; move away from fossil fuels and fracking.
• Promises 100 percent clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050.
• Require aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and gas operations.
• Upgrade 4 million buildings and weatherize 2 million homes over 4 years. Reduce carbon footprint of U.S. building stock 50 percent by 2035.
• Demand worldwide ban on fossil fuel subsidies.
• Recommit to Paris Climate Agreement. Restore funding to Global Environment Facility and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Law Enforcement

Trump

• Eliminate “no-knock warrants.”
• Fully fund and back police departments.

Biden

• Decrease funding to police departments and increase diversity.
• Establish “no-knock warrants” standards.
• Limit the sale and transfer of surplus military weapons to domestic law enforcement agencies.
• Limit qualified immunity.

Criminal Justice

Trump

• Signed the First Step Act in 2018, which allowed for almost 3,100 inmates to be released, mostly drug offenders and inmates serving sentences for weapons charges.
• Supports death penalty.
• Crackdown on child sex trafficking and internet sites that facilite it, as well as pornography.
• Opposes federal decriminalization of marijuana, but indicated support for allowing states to legalize it.

Biden

• Create new $20 billion grant program to get states to shift from incarceration to prevention.
• Supports end of mandatory minimum sentences at federal level.
• Decriminalize cannabis use and automatically expunge prior convictions.
• End all incarceration for drug use alone and divert individuals to drug courts and treatment.
• Eliminate death penalty.
• End cash bail and the use of private prisons.
• Provide housing to all individuals upon release from prison.
• Liberally use clemency powers for certain nonviolent and drug crimes.

Second Amendment

Trump

• Uphold Second Amendment rights.
• Opposes laws that would restrict magazine capacity or ban the sale of the most popular and common rifle.
• Condemns frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and the harassment of firearm dealers.
• Opposes federal licensing or registration of law-abiding gun owners, and registration of ammunition.
• Banned bump stocks.
• Repealed law that required the SSA to send mental health information to the national background check system.
• Supports “red flag” laws.

Biden

• Ban manufacture and sale of military-style firearms and high-capacity magazines; regulate possession of existing assault weapons.
• Restrict individuals to one firearm purchase per month.
• Prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts.
• Increase background check time from 3 days to 10 days. Require background checks for all gun sales, including gun show and online sales.
• Send information from the Social Security Administration to the national background check system to stop “certain people unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons” from owning a gun.
• Incentivize expansion of “red flag” laws in all states.
• Move toward a system where all guns sold are “smart guns,” requiring an owner’s fingerprint to operate.

Military

Trump

• Launched Space Force as the sixth branch of the military.
• Rebuilt troop numbers and readiness.
• Passed the VA Accountability and Veterans Choice acts.
• Dismantled the ISIS terrorist group.
• Killed Iranian terrorist Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
• Bring more troops home.
• Build a strong cybersecurity defense system and missile defense system.

Biden

• Supports sufficient military funding and modernization, but likely decrease in overall defense spending.
• Use force only to defend vital interests and with the informed consent of the American people.
• End Middle East wars, bring troops home from Afghanistan, end support from Saudi Arabia in Yemen conflict.
• Climate change to be at core of Department of Defense policies and plans.
• Allow transgender troops.
• Close Guantanamo Bay detention center.

Foreign Affairs

Trump

• Pulled out of Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, Paris climate accord, Iran nuclear deal, U.N. human rights council, U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Health Organization, and the International Criminal Court.
• Escalated sanctions on Iran and Russia.
• Peace agreement between Israel and the UAE, and aiming to add more countries.
• Moved U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
• Facilitated a larger contribution from countries to NATO.
• Advance the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
• Expanding defense cooperation with Taiwan and Poland.
• Cut international aid.
• Supports Russia rejoining the G7.

Biden

• Supports rejoining Iran deal, if Iran in compliance.
• Rejoin Paris Climate Agreement. Rejoin WHO and expand funding to it. Rejoin U.N. Human Rights Council, and U.N. Population Fund.
• Expand international aid and commit to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
• Increase funding for diplomatic missions.
• Commits to Israel security.
• Strengthen ties with Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
• Call for commitment to NATO.
• Engage allies, including China, to push for North Korea denuclearization.
• Nuclear weapons only as a deterrent or retaliation
• Supports extending New START treaty with Russia.

China

Trump

• Completed Phase 1 trade deal.
• Pushed against proliferation of Huawei in 5G and other IT infrastructure, and took action against TikTok and WeChat.
• Cracks down on China’s influence operations in United States, including Confucius institutes, Chinese state-run media.
• Cracks down on Chinese nationals stealing intellectual property and trade secrets.
• Closed consulate in Houston for spying. Expose and uproot Chinese propaganda and surveillance of Americans.
• Urges universities to divest from China stocks.
• Divest federal retirement funds from Chinese stocks.
• Scrutinize U.S.-listed Chinese companies for shady accounting practices.
• Highlights state-sanctioned religious persecution.
• Sanctioned Chinese entities for human rights violations.

Biden

• Make bilateral U.S.–China agreements on carbon mitigation contingent on China eliminating unjustified export subsidies for coal and other high-emissions technologies and making verifiable progress in reducing the carbon footprint of projects connected to the Belt and Road Initiative.
• Urge tech companies to pledge not to facilitate repression in China

Source: https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-and-biden-policy-stances-2_3483640.html?ref=brief_News&utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email.