See where the candidates stand on major issues. And for more election information, go to HoustonChronicle.com/2016
The 2016 presidential election campaign comes to a close on Tuesday. Here’s a look at the positions and platforms of Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
DEFENSE
A BIGGER MILITARY?
TRUMP: Echoing concerns of many Republicans, Trump argues that the military is too small to accomplish its assigned missions. He would increase the size of the active-duty Army to 540,000. The current total is 475,000 soldiers, which is due to shrink to 460,000 by the end of the current budget year in September 2017. He also would put the Navy on track to increasing its active-duty fleet to 350 ships, compared to the current Navy plan of growing from today’s 272 ships to 308 sometime after 2020. He has not said how he would pay for these increases, other than calling for an audit of the Pentagon’s books and economizing in broad ways like “reducing duplicative bureaucracy.”
CLINTON: The former secretary of state has offered fewer specifics in her defense plan. Her emphasis has been on military innovation rather than military growth. Her website says she would “invest in innovation and capabilities that will allow us to prepare for and fight 21st-century threats.” She has offered few details, however, while making broad promises like “modernizing” the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force and sharpening America’s ability to defend itself against cyber intrusions and attacks.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
TRUMP: He has asserted that the U.S. military has fallen dangerously behind Russia in nuclear capability. This does not square with the facts, and Trump has demonstrated a limited knowledge of U.S. nuclear weapons. The implication of his remarks is that he would endorse the Obama plan for a complete modernization of the nuclear arsenal, and perhaps even accelerate it. He has suggested that the nuclear arms treaty negotiated by the Obama administration during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, known as New START, has put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage.
CLINTON: This is one of the few areas of defense policy where the Democratic candidate has been specific about her intentions. She has defended the New START treaty as benefiting the U.S., and she has promised that early in her presidential term she would undertake a top-to-bottom review of the nation’s nuclear weapons requirements and capabilities. That could set the stage for changes more significant than any President Barack Obama has made. For example, Clinton has told her supporters that she sees little need for a newgeneration nuclear-armed cruise missile, which the Obama administration has supported.
DEFENSE BUDGET
TRUMP: He says he would work with Congress to repeal what Washington calls “sequestration,” or across-the-board budget cuts. Without that repeal, or other legislative action to stabilize the defense budget, Trump would have little or no room for the kinds of increased spending he has proposed. He has promised, for example, to invest unspecified amounts in a “serious” missile defense network to protect the United States from potential long-range missile strikes from North Korea and Iran.
CLINTON: She has emphasized eliminating seques- tration for defense and non-defense spending. Like Obama, she has argued that American military strength requires not just a big defense budget but also a commitment to strengthening alliances like NATO and building partnerships with countries that are not treaty allies. She has promised “good stewardship of taxpayer dollars,” said she would put a high priority on “curbing runaway cost growth” in military health care and pledged “defense reform initiatives.”
DEFEATING THE ISLAMIC STATE
TRUMP: He says his administration would “crush and destroy” the Islamic State group, arguing that his approach would be more aggressive and more effective than Obama’s. The outlines of his plan, however, are similar to what the Obama administration has been trying to do. Trump says he would pursue “international cooperation to cut off” the extremists’ funding, expand intelligence sharing with allies and partner nations, and use cyberwarfare to “disrupt and disable their propaganda and recruiting.”
CLINTON: She has called for intensifying the air campaign in Iraq and Syria but not said how that would be done, including whether it would require deploying more U.S. troops. She also has advocated increasing the flow of arms to local Arab and Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria, and she has broken with the Obama administration by calling for the establishment of “safe zones” for civilians in Syria that would be protected by U.S. and coalition air power. Like Trump, she says more can be done to interrupt the extremists’ use of the internet to communicate and to recruit new fighters.
WHAT ABOUT AFGHANISTAN?
Neither candidate has said much about one of the most vexing problems that will face the next president: What to do about Afghanistan, where Obama tried but failed to end U.S. military involvement and where the government, after 15 years of fighting of the Taliban, currently controls only about two-thirds of the country’s population.
GLOBAL TRADE
TRADE DEALS
TRUMP: The Republican candidate blames job losses on unfair trade agreements. The man who wrote “The Art of the Deal” says incompetent U.S. negotiators are routinely outmaneuvered by sharper foreigners. He threatens to tear up existing trade treaties, including the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, calling it “the worst single trade deal ever approved in this country.”
Most economists say NAFTA had little impact on the overall job market or the economy, confounding the optimistic predictions of its supporters and the dire warnings of opponents. CLINTON: Like Trump, Clinton has come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious trade pact the Obama administration negotiated with 11 Pacific Rim countries. TPP awaits congressional approval. Critics say the deal exposes U.S. workers to competition with low-wage workers in countries such as Vietnam. Clinton’s opposition is a flip-flop: As Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton called the TPP “the gold standard” for trade deals.
CRACKING DOWN ON CHINA AND OTHER COMPETITORS
CLINTON: The Democratic candidate has promised to appoint a chief trade prosecutor and triple the number of trade enforcement officers to crack down on unfair practices by the United States’ trading partners.
TRUMP: He has vowed to name China a “currency manipulator” and punish it with trade sanctions. He says Beijing keeps China’s currency, the yuan, artificially low to give Chinese companies a price edge in international markets.
Economists say Trump’s charges are outdated. Three or four years ago, China was pretty clearly holding the yuan down. More recently, market forces, not government bureaucrats, have been pushing the currency lower as the Chinese economy decelerates. If anything, the Chinese government has been intervening in the currency markets to slow the yuan’s drop. On Oct. 14, the U.S. Treasury Department once again decided not to label China a currency manipulator.
TAXING IMPORTS
TRUMP: He threatens to impose tariffs — or taxes — of 45 percent on Chinese imports and 35 percent on goods shipped in from Mexico to discourage American companies from moving south of the border.
Congress normally approves tariffs and trade agreements. But Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, says that lawmakers over the years have given the White House the power to act unilaterally in foreign affairs. Nothing “prevents President Trump from imposing blunderbuss tariffs against one or more foreign countries,” Hufbauer wrote. The World Trade Organization could later rule that the U.S. acted unfairly — but Trump has threatened to pull out of the WTO, too.
Whatever the legality of Trump tariffs, other countries would almost certainly retaliate by slapping their own taxes on U.S. goods. The Peterson Institute warns that Trump’s trade proposals “could unleash a trade war that would plunge the U.S. economy into recession and cost more than 4 million private sector American jobs.”
CLINTON: The Peterson Institute predicts Clinton’s program would be less damaging as it mainly calls for stepped-up enforcement of existing policies.
ECONOMY
FEDERAL BUDGET
TRUMP: He hopes to ignite growth with tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy. Those cuts would cause the federal debt to climb $5.3 trillion through 2026, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Budget.
Trump would cut spending on Medicaid, eliminate Obamacare and reduce congressionally controlled domestic spending by 1 percent annually. The Republican nominee also pledged to spend more on the military, veterans and infrastructure. Outside experts say Trump is unlikely to achieve the 3.5 percent growth he promises in large part due to demographic factors such as an aging U.S. population that have kept growth tethered closer to 2 percent.
CLINTON: She would raise taxes — primarily on the wealthy — by more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Those tax hikes would help to finance tuition-free college for many families, support child care programs, invest in infrastructure and provide paid family leave. The debt would increase $200 billion over 10 years under Clinton’s plan, according to the analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Budget. The extent of that debt increase is a fraction of what would likely occur under Trump.
FEDERAL RESERVE
TRUMP: He has embraced conspiracy theories about the U.S. central bank. The Fed has held short-term interest rates near historic lows since 2008 to help nurture economic growth. The rates have helped job gains without risking high inflation. If Fed Chair Janet Yellen faces any challenge, it’s now the delicate balancing act of undoing the many years of low rates without damaging the economy.
As a real estate mogul, Trump has said he loves low interest rates, but he also has called the independent Fed a political pawn of the White House. Yellen is holding down rates in order to make Obama look good, he says. Fed policy has inflated a “big, fat, ugly, bubble” in the stock market, he said in the first presidential debate. Yellen should be “ashamed,” Trump said.
CLINTON: She has backed a Democratic plan to take private sector bankers off the Fed’s regional boards, suggesting that the Fed should be more focused on the general public instead of financiers. Fed governor Lael Brainard has donated to the Clinton campaign, but Yellen has vigorously defended the Fed’s independence.
JOBS
CLINTON: She has said her measure of success will be “how much incomes rise for hardworking families.” Her goal toward increasing incomes would include a $275 billion, five-year plan to rebuild infrastructure. The notion here is that repaired roads and bridges would create construction jobs, while also decreasing travel times for commuters. She also supports raising the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour from the current $7.25.
TRUMP: He has set a hard target of creating 25 million jobs over the next decade. This depends in large part on achieving the 3.5 percent average growth that outside economists say is unlikely. The Trump campaign argues that lower tax rates, fewer regulations, newly negotiated trade deals and fewer restrictions on oil, coal and natural gas production will fuel these job gains. Trump’s plan assumes that greater drilling and mining of fossil fuels will add 500,000 jobs annually, although that claim appears not to factor in prices determined on the open market. Trump would also support greater infrastructure spending, saying he would double Clinton’s commitment.
ENERGY
OIL AND GAS
CLINTON: She generally supports oil and gas drilling on federal lands, but would bar drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. While Clinton would cut subsidies given to oil companies, she has said natural gas serves as an important “bridge” to more renewable fuels. She says fracking should not take place where states and local communities oppose it and pledges to reduce methane emissions from all oil and gas production and protect local water supplies. She also would require energy companies to disclose the chemicals used in fracking.
TRUMP: He complains that “energy is under siege by the Obama administration” and vows to “unleash” an American energy revolution, allowing unfettered production of oil, coal and natural gas. He would sharply increase oil and gas drilling on federal lands and open up offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean and other areas where it is blocked.
Trump says restrictions supported by Clinton would hurt energy-producing states such as Colorado, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
CLINTON: Pledges that the U.S. will be able to generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America within 10 years, with 500 million solar panels installed by the end of her first term. She also vows to reduce U.S. oil consumption by one-third through cleaner fuels such as biodiesel and natural gas and more fuel-efficient cars, boilers, ships and trucks. Clinton vows to use tax incentives and other steps to bolster wind and solar power, as well hydroelectricity, geothermal power and other forms of renewable electricity.
TRUMP: Argues that tax credits and other subsidies for wind and solar power “distort” the market, but says the U.S. should “encourage all facets of the energy industry,” including wind and solar power, as a way to achieve energy independence. He has characterized solar energy as an “unproven technology” with a low return on investment and says wind energy has killed birds and is a “very, very poor source of energy.”
CLIMATE CHANGE
CLINTON: Calls climate change a real and urgent problem and says the U.S. can take the global lead in addressing it. She vows to meet Obama’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 percent by 2025 and says America “can rally the world to cut carbon pollution” while fulfilling “our moral obligation to protect this planet for our children and our grandchildren.”
TRUMP: Calls climate change a “hoax” perpetrated by China and others and says he will rescind Obama’s Clean Power Plan rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the utility sector. The plan, a lynchpin of Obama’s climate strategy, has been delayed by the Supreme Court while legal challenges are heard. Trump also would cancel the 2015 Paris climate agreement and stop U.S. money going to U.N. global warming programs.
EDUCATION
SCHOOL CHOICE
TRUMP: Has embraced a concept popular among conservatives, which calls for students and their parents to select the school they wish to attend — public, private, charter or magnet. Trump proposes spending $20 billion in his first year for block grants to states, and directing them to use the money to help millions of elementary school students living in poverty attend the school of their choice. That money “should follow the students,” a concept known as portability. Critics of school choice argue that approach would deprive public schools of money, and Congress rejected the idea in the education law it passed last year.
CLINTON: Clinton has voiced support for charter schools, which operate with public money but are governed by an independent “charter” rather than a community’s established public educa- tion system. But Clinton does not back the broader concept of school choice. “I want parents to be able to exercise choice within the public school system — not outside of it, but within it — because I am still a firm believer that the public school system is one of the real pillars of our democracy and it is a path for opportunity,” she said in November 2015.
STUDENT LOANS AND DEBT
TRUMP: He has decried the impact on college students of debt from loans, but beyond his promise to create jobs as president, he has not offered a concrete proposal to address what he called “one of the biggest questions” he gets from people in college. Trump has criticized the federal government’s student loan program for making a profit, telling The Hill newspaper in July 2015 “that’s probably one of the only things the government shouldn’t make money off.”
CLINTON: She has proposed that students from families making less than $125,000 a year be able to attend a public college or university in their home state without having to pay tuition, and that all community colleges be tuition- free. Under her plan, students with existing student loan debt would be able to refinance, and Clinton promises a three-month moratorium on payments to allow those in debt to take steps to reduce their monthly payments. Those deemed “entrepreneurs” would get a three-year deferment on their loans “so that student debt and the lack of family wealth is not a barrier to innovation in our country.”
RACE AND POLICING
POLICING
CLINTON: Clinton has spoken repeatedly about the need to change policing in the United States and has devoted a major part of her campaign platform to the issue.
Her suggestions for ways to improve policing include coming up with national standards for police for use of force, allocating $1 billion from her first budget for police training, supporting legislation that would fight racial profiling, providing federal matching funds for body cameras for police, limiting the use of military weapons by local police forces and collecting and reporting national data on police shootings, deaths in custody and crime around the country.
She has also offered support for police officers, many of whom she says serve with courage, honor and skill.
TRUMP: Trump has made few campaign promises about policing other than to say that he supports the police.
STOP AND FRISK
TRUMP: Trump has advocated the return of the controversial program in New York City. Under the program, officers can stop and search anyone they deem suspicious. “Stop and frisk had a tremendous impact on the safety of New York City, tremendous beyond belief,” Trump said at the first presidential debate.
In 2013, a federal judge ruled stop-and-frisk violated the rights of minorities and its implementation in New York was unconstitutional because police were making stops because of race and not because they had a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
CLINTON: Clinton has opposed the return of stopand-frisk. “Stop and frisk was found unconstitutional in part because it was ineffective,” she said at the first presidential debate.
BLACK LIVES MATTER
TRUMP: The Republican has not shown much enthusiasm for the Black Lives Matter movement, agreeing that some people think it is “inherently racist.” He has criticized the movement for what he described as its incitement of violence against police in places like Dallas and Baton Rouge, La.
“And it’s a very divisive term because all lives matter,” Trump said. “It’s a very, very divisive term.”
CLINTON: Clinton also has had a rocky relationship with the Black Lives Matter movement, having had one of her events in South Carolina interrupted by a Black Lives Matter activist who confronted her on her super predator comments. Clinton also was criticized last year over her use of the phrase “all lives matter” while speaking to a black church in Missouri. Some see that phrase as a push back against the concerns of the BLM movement. Clinton has tried to get activists and supporters on her side, meeting with them before a campaign event during the Democratic primary and saying the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in several of her campaign speeches. She also has talked about some of the issues that activists have been pushing, including implicit biases and systematic racism in the United States.
GUNS
BACKGROUND CHECKS
TRUMP: Supports keeping the current system – where background checks must be completed within three days or the sale goes ahead – but making it more effective by ensuring that states provide criminal and mental health records so the system has the most up-to-date and accurate information. He criticizes efforts to expand background checks, saying it ignores that criminals rarely purchase their firearms through legal channels.
CLINTON: Advocates expanding background checks to include the sale of firearms at gun shows or via the internet. She also pledges to close the so-called “Charleston loophole,” named for the shooting deaths of nine people at a South Carolina church during Bible study, which allows a gun sale to take place if the background check is not completed within the required three days.
ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN
TRUMP: Opposes efforts to reinstate the ban, which had been put in place in 1994 under the administration of Bill Clinton and expired 10 years later. “Lawabiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice,” Trump says in his position paper on the Second Amendment. “The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own.” CLINTON: Has supported reinstating the ban on assault weapons. “Militarystyle assault weapons do not belong on our streets,” Clinton has said.