Where do they stand on health, economy, more?

Trump vs Biden

WASHINGTON, July 30, (AP): President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, both promise sweeping progress over the next four years — via starkly different paths.

Trump, like many fellow Republicans, holds out tax reductions and regulatory cuts as economic cure-alls and frames himself as a conservative champion in seemingly endless culture wars. But the president, still trying to fashion himself as an outsider, offers little detail about how he’d pull the levers of government in a second term.

Biden, for his part, 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 loves framing his deal-making past as proof he can do it again from the Oval Office.

It leaves Americans with an unambiguous choice. A look at where the rivals stand on key issues:

Economy, taxes: Decades-low unemployment and a soaring stock market were Trump’s calling cards before the pandemic. While the stock market has clawed much of its way back after cratering in the early weeks of the crisis, unemployment stood at 11.1% in June, higher than the nadir of the Great Recession. There were still about 14.7 million fewer jobs last month than there were prior to the pandemic in February.

Trump has predicted that the US economy will rebound in the third and fourth quarters of this year and is set to take off like a “rocket ship” in the new year, a prediction that bakes in the assumption that a coronavirus vaccine or effective therapeutics have hit the market that allow life to get back to normal. He’s still advocating for a payroll tax cut, though such a measure faces stiff bipartisan opposition. Winning a second term — and a mandate from voters — might be his best hope at getting it through.

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 US energy grid by 2035 and a new government health insurance plan open to all working-age Americans (with generous subsidies). He proposes new spending on education, infrastructure and small businesses, along with raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Education: Trump has used his push for schools to fully reopen this fall amid the pandemic as an opportunity to spotlight his support for charter schools and school choice.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a longtime proponent of charter schools and school voucher programs, has suggested that families be allowed to take federal money allotted to school districts that don’t open and spend it in private schools that do open. For most of Trump’s first term, his administration has sought major increases to federal charter school grant aid. But Congress has responded with relatively small increases.

With higher education, Trump has repeatedly complained that campuses are beset by “radical left indoctrination.” He recently threatened to defund universities, saying that he was having the Treasury Department reexamine tax-exempt status and federal funding of unspecified schools.

Biden wants the federal government to partner 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 two-year 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.

Health care: As a candidate for the White House, Trump promised that he would “immediately” replace President Barack Obama’s health care law with a plan of his own that would provide “insurance for everybody.” In the last leg of his first term, Americans are still waiting for Trump to make his big reveal. Trump officials say the administration has made strides by championing transparency on hospital prices, pursuing a range of actions to curb prescription drug costs and expanding lower-cost health insurance alternatives for small businesses and individuals. But those incremental steps are far short from the sweeping changes Trump had promised.

Biden wants a “Medicare-like public option” to compete alongside private insurance markets for working-age Americans, while increasing premium subsidies that many working-class and middle-class workers use already under the Affordable Care Act. Biden estimates that would cost about $750 billion over 10 years. That positions Biden between Trump, who wants to scrap the 2010 law, and progressives who want a single-payer system to replace private insurance altogether. Biden sees his approach as the next step toward universal coverage and one he could get through Congress.

Coronavirus: After months of insisting 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 directly 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 open this fall without restrictions, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs.

Trade: Trump views the signing of two major trade deals — an updated pact with Mexico and Canada, and phase one of a China agreement — as signature achievements of his presidency. US and China signed phase one in January, less than two months before the coronavirus pandemic put an enormous strain on US—Sino relations. Trump says phase one led to China buying roughly $200 billion over two years in US agricultural products, energy and other American products. In return, the US canceled planned US tariffs on Chinese-made smartphones, toys and laptop computers. The US also cut in half, to 7.5%, the tariff rate levied on $120 billion in other China imports.

Phase two of the deal is expected to focus on some tougher issues between the countries, including Trump’s wish to get China to stop subsidizing its state-owned enterprises. But for Trump, who has come to frequently refer to the coronavirus as the “China virus,” it remains to be seen whether he will be able to effectively reengage Beijing on trade. Trump recently said he’s “not interested” in presently talking to China.

Foreign policy: During his first term, Trump built his foreign policy around the mantra of “America First.” In addition to the trade deals, he counts as major achievements building more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) of his promised wall along the US-Mexico border, cajoling more NATO members to fulfill their pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defense spending and reducing the US military footprint in Afghanistan and other hot spots. He also announced his intended withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.

Trump can officially withdraw the US from the Paris agreement — it sets the goal of holding global warming below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — as an example of an agreement that “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.”

Trump