The Big Campaign Website Platform Thread

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I thought it would be a good idea to put every (major) candidate's platform from their websites into one thread and maybe sticky it. I'll keep adding to OP as I go through the sites. First up . . . naturally, Donald Trump. I will go back and fact-check his platform later. When I'm done, I'll move onto other candidates. But feel free to beat me to the punch. When I have everything, OP will be replaced with post-links to the platforms, and I'll make a separate post for Trump's.

Anyway . . .

Donald Trump's Campaign Platform​

Trumps site only states his positions in five policy areas

• U.S.-China Trade Reform

• Veterans Administration Reforms

• Tax Reform

• Second Amendment Rights

• Immigration Reform

Not surprisingly, these are probably the areas his base cares about the most, if not the ONLY areas his base cares about. Notably absent from the Trump website are any plans about education, campaign finance reform, or healthcare. Anyway, let's start from the top and go down.

U.S.-China Trade Reform​

• Since China joined the WTO, Americans have witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens of millions of jobs. It was not a good deal for America then and it’s a bad deal now.
• The most important component of our China policy is leadership and strength at the negotiating table. We have been too afraid to protect and advance American interests and to challenge China to live up to its obligations
• Free trade must also be fair trade (**wow. Very unrepublican thing to say).

Trump claims he would do five things to repair trade with China

1. Declare China A Currency Manipulator - pretty self explanatory. Don thinks this would put pressure on China to negotiate.
2. End China’s Intellectual Property Violations - He doesn't say much about this except "zero tolerance" for IP theft and "we will enforce stronger protections."
3. Eliminate China’s Illegal Export Subsidies And Other Unfair Advantages - Not many details here either. He just says he will pursue a WTO case against China very aggressively in order to get China to stop giving its manufacturers illegal subsidies.
4. Strengthen our negotiating position - Okay, here are some details. Trump wants to lower the corporate tax rate to 15% to make us more competitive, lower the deficit and debt so that China cannot "attack us with our own Treasury bonds," and deploy the US military to the East and South China Seas.

Veterans Administration Reforms​

Kind of strange that this has its own section on the site, along with bigger substantive issues. But okay. Trump's VA position has three planks:

1. Ensure our veterans get better care: Under a Trump Administration, all veterans eligible for VA health care can bring their veteran’s ID card to any doctor or care facility that accepts Medicare to get the care they need immediately.
2. Treat the "Whole" Veteran:
   1. Increase funding for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury and suicide prevention services.
   2. Increase funding for job training and placement services, educational support, and business loans
   3. Expand VA services for female veterans. Under the Trump plan, every VA hospital in the country will be fully equipped with OBGYN and other women’s health services. In addition, women veterans can always choose a different OBGYN in their community using their veteran’s ID card
3. Make the VA Great Again
   1. Fire the corrupt and incompetent VA executives that let our veterans down
   2. End waste, fraud and abuse at the VA. The Trump plan will clean up the VA’s finances so the current VA budget provides more and better care than it does now.
   3. Modernize the VA. All veterans should be able to conveniently schedule appointments, communicate with their doctors, and view accurate wait times with the push of a button
   4. Empower the caregivers to ensure our veterans receive quality care quickly.
   5. Hire more veterans to care for veterans. Add an additional 5 points to the qualifying scores of veterans applying for VA jobs.
   6. Embed satellite VA clinics in rural and other underserved areas

Tax Reform​

• If you are single and earn less than $25,000, or married and jointly earn less than $50,000, you will not owe any income tax. That removes nearly 75 million households – over 50% – from the income tax rolls
• All other Americans will get a simpler tax code with four brackets – 0%, 10%, 20% and 25% – instead of the current seven. This new tax code eliminates the marriage penalty and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
• No business of any size, from a Fortune 500 to a mom and pop shop to a freelancer living job to job, will pay more than 15% of their business income in taxes.
• No family will have to pay the death tax.

The Trump tax cuts are fully paid for by:

1. Reducing or eliminating most deductions and loopholes available to the very rich.
   1. What are these loopholes you may ask? Trump wants to "steepen[] the curve of the Personal Exemption Phaseout and the Pease Limitation on itemized deductions." Trump also wants to phase out the tax exemption on life insurance interest for high-income earners, and end the current tax treatment of carried interest for speculative partnerships.
2. A one-time deemed repatriation of corporate cash held overseas at a significantly discounted 10% tax rate, followed by an end to the deferral of taxes on corporate income earned abroad.
3. Reducing or eliminating corporate loopholes that cater to special interests, as well as deductions made unnecessary or redundant by the new lower tax rate on corporations and business income. We will also phase in a reasonable cap on the deductibility of business interest expenses.

Second Amendment Rights (and Fixing Gun Violence)​

• Several years ago there was a tremendous program in Richmond, Virginia called Project Exile. It said that if a violent felon uses a gun to commit a crime, you will be prosecuted in federal court and go to prison for five years – no parole or early release. Obama’s former Attorney General, Eric Holder, called that a “cookie cutter” program. Murders committed with guns in Richmond decreased by over 60% when Project Exile was in place – in the first two years of the program alone, 350 armed felons were taken off the street.
• Our mental health system is broken.
• Gun and magazine bans are a total failure. That’s been proven every time it’s been tried.
• Very few criminals are stupid enough to try and pass a background check – they get their guns from friends/family members or by stealing them. There has been a national background check system in place since 1998. But too many states are failing to put criminal and mental health records into the system – and it should go without saying that a system’s only going to be as effective as the records that are put into it. What we need to do is fix the system we have and make it work as intended.
• A national right to carry. Concealed carry permits should be valid in all 50 states, just like driver's licenses.
• Banning our military from carrying firearms on bases and at recruiting centers is ridiculous.

Immigration Reform ​

• Mexico is going to build that damn wall. Until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico.
• Triple the number of ICE officers. Pay for this by eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.
• Nationwide e-verify.
• All criminal aliens must be returned to their home countries, a process which can be aided by canceling any visas to foreign countries which will not accept their own criminals, and making it a separate and additional crime to commit an offense while here illegally.
• Illegal aliens apprehended crossing the border must be detained until they are sent home, no more catch-and-release.
• Cut-off federal grants to any city which refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
• Individuals who refuse to leave at the time their visa expires should be subject to criminal penalties; this will also help give local jurisdictions the power to hold visa overstays until federal authorities arrive.
• ICE officers should accompany local police departments conducting raids of violent street gangs like MS-13 and the 18th street gang, which have terrorized the country.
• End birthright citizenship.
• Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas.
• Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S. ()
• The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth
• Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses.
• Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers.

 

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Hillary Clinton's Campaign Platform (to be edited)​

Hillary Clinton's website lists a whopping twenty-eight policy issues that she has a position on:

Alzheimer's disease
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Invest $2 billion per year in research for Alzheimer’s and related disorders.

Coordinate with leading researchers to ensure progress toward the treatment goal.

Alleviate the burden on families by covering Alzheimer's care-planning services and protecting loved ones who wander from home.

Campaign finance reform​

Overturn Citizens United

Push for legislation to require "outside groups" to publicly disclose significant political spending. And until Congress acts, she'll sign an executive order requiring federal government contractors to do the same.

Create a small-donor matching system for presidential and congressional elections to incentivize small donors to participate in elections

Campus sexual assault
​

Provide comprehensive support to survivors.

Ensure fair process for all in campus disciplinary proceedings and the criminal justice system.

Increase sexual violence prevention education programs that cover issues like consent and bystander intervention, not only in college, but also in secondary school.

Climate change and energy​

Defend, implement, and extend smart pollution and efficiency standards, including the Clean Power Plan, which will prevent 3,600 premature deaths and 90,000 asthma attacks annually, and efficiency standards for cars, trucks and appliances that are already reducing energy costs for American households and businesses by over $75 billion per year..

Launch a $60 billion Clean Energy Challenge to partner with states, cities, and rural communities and give them the tools and resources they need to go beyond federal standards in cutting carbon pollution and expanding clean energy. The Clean Energy Challenge will also help ensure all Americans share in the benefits of a clean energy economy by encouraging solar and energy efficiency investments in low-income communities.

Invest in clean energy infrastructure, innovation, manufacturing and workforce development to make the U.S. economy more competitive and create good paying jobs and careers. Hillary has a comprehensive plan for making existing energy infrastructure cleaner and safer, unlocking new investment, and forging a climate compact with Canada and Mexico to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate clean energy deployment across the continent.

Ensure safe and responsible energy production. As we transition to a clean energy economy, we must ensure that the fossil fuel production taking place today is safe and responsible and that areas too sensitive for energy production are taken off the table. Hillary knows there are some places where we should keep fossil fuels in the ground or under the ocean.

Reform leasing on public lands. As president, Hillary would reform fossil fuel leasing and significantly expand clean energy production on public lands, from wind in Wyoming to solar in Nevada.

End wasteful tax subsidies for oil and gas companies. Oil and gas companies have enjoyed billions in tax breaks for decades. Hillary would end those wasteful subsidies and invest in clean energy.

Cut methane emissions across the economy. Hillary would cut emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, by 40-45 percent and put in place strong standards for reducing leaks from both new and existing sources.

Revitalize coal communities. Building a 21st century clean energy economy will create new jobs and industries, protect public health, and reduce carbon pollution. But we can’t ignore the impact this transition is already having on coal communities. Hillary’s $30 billion plan to revitalize coal communities will ensure coal miners, power plant operators, transportation workers, and their families get the respect they deserve and the benefits they have earned; invest in economic diversification and job creation; and make coal communities an engine of US economic growth in the 21st century, as they have been for generations.

College​

Students should never have to borrow to pay for tuition, books, and fees to attend a four-year public college in their state under the "New College Compact." Pell Grants are not included in the calculation of no-debt-tuition, so Pell recipients will be able to use their grants fully for living expenses. Students at community college will receive free tuition.

Students will do their part by contributing their earnings from working 10 hours a week.

Families will do their part by making an affordable and realistic family contribution.

The federal government will make a major investment in the New College Compact by providing grants to states that commit to these goals, and by cutting interest rates on loans.

States will have to step up and meet their obligation to invest in higher education by maintaining current levels of higher education funding and reinvesting over time.

Colleges and universities will be accountable for improving outcomes and controlling costs to ensure that tuition is affordable and that students who invest in college leave with a degree.

We will encourage innovators who design imaginative new ways of providing a valuable college education to students—while cracking down on abusive practices that burden students with debt without value.

A $25 billion fund will support HBCUs, HSIs, and other MSIs serving a high percentage of Pell Grant recipients to help lower the cost of attendance and improve student outcomes at low-cost, modest-endowment nonprofit private schools.

Criminal justice reform​

Work to strengthen bonds of trust between communities and police. Effective policing and constitutional policing go hand-in-hand—we can and must do both. Hillary will work to promote effective, accountable, constitutional policing, including:

• Making new investments to support state-of-the-art law enforcement training programs at every level on issues such as implicit bias, use of force, de-escalation, community policing and problem solving, alternatives to incarceration, crisis intervention, and officer safety and wellness.
  
  
• Strengthening the U.S. Department of Justice’s pattern or practice unit by increasing resources, working to secure subpoena power, and improving data collection for pattern or practice investigations.
  
  
• Doubling funding for the U.S. Department of Justice “Collaborative Reform” program to provide technical assistance and training to agencies that undertake voluntary efforts toward transformational reform of their police departments. Across the country, there are police departments deploying creative and effective strategies that we can learn from and build on.
  
  
• Supporting legislation to end racial profiling by federal, state, and local law enforcement officials.
  
  
• Providing federal matching funds to make body cameras available to every police officer to increase transparency and accountability on both sides of the lens.
  
  
• Promoting oversight and accountability in use of controlled equipment by limiting the transfer of military equipment by the federal government to local law enforcement, eliminating the one-year use requirement, and requiring transparency by agencies that purchase equipment using federal funds.
  
  
• Collecting and reporting national data on policing to inform policing strategies and provide greater transparency and accountability, including robust state and local data on issues such as crime, officer involved shootings, and deaths in custody.
  
  
• Creating national guidelines for use of force that recognize the need for officers to protect their safety and the safety of others, but emphasize use of force as a last resort and at the appropriate level. The federal government has an important role to play in standardizing best practices for the use of force.
  

Take action on mandatory minimum sentences. Excessive federal mandatory minimum sentences keep nonviolent drug offenders in prison for longer than is necessary or useful and have increased racial inequality in our criminal justice system. Hillary will reform mandatory minimum sentences, including:

• Reducing mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses by cutting them in half.
  
  
• Applying Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactively to allow current nonviolent prisoners to seek fairer sentences.
  
  
• Eliminating the sentencing disparity for crack and powder cocaine so that equal amounts of crack and powder cocaine carry equal sentences and applying this change retroactively.
  
  
• Reforming the “strike” system to focus on violent crime by narrowing the category of prior offenses that count as strikes to exclude nonviolent drug offenses, and reducing the mandatory penalty for second- and third-strike offenses.
  
  
• Granting additional discretion to judges in applying mandatory minimum sentences by expanding the “safety valve” to a larger set of cases.

Focus federal enforcement resources on violent crime, not simple marijuana possession. Marijuana arrests, including for simple possession, account for a huge number of drug arrests. Further, significant racial disparities exist in marijuana enforcement, with black men significantly more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than their white counterparts, even though usage rates are similar. Hillary believes we need an approach to marijuana that includes:

• Allowing states that have enacted marijuana laws to act as laboratories of democracy, as long as they adhere to certain federal priorities such as not selling to minors, preventing intoxicated driving, and keeping organized crime out of the industry.
  
  
• Rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule II substance. Hillary supports medical marijuana and would reschedule marijuana to advance research into its health benefits.

Prioritize treatment and rehabilitation—rather than incarceration—for low-level, nonviolent drug offenders. Over half of prison and jail inmates suffer from a mental health problem, and up to 65 percent of the correctional population meets the medical criteria for a substance use disorder. Hillary will ensure adequate training for law enforcement for crisis intervention and referral to treatment, as appropriate, for low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with mental health or addiction problems. She will also direct the attorney general to issue guidance to federal prosecutors on seeking treatment over incarceration for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes. Read more on Hillary’s plan to tackle America’s epidemic of addiction.

End the privatization of prisons. Hillary believes we should move away from contracting out this core responsibility of the federal government to private corporations, and from creating private industry incentives that may contribute—or have the appearance of contributing—to over-incarceration. The campaign does not accept contributions from federally registered lobbyists or PACs for private prison companies, and will donate any such direct contributions to charity.

Promote successful re-entry by formerly incarcerated individuals. This year, the number of people released from state or federal prison will reach approximately 600,000. For those given a second chance, and for the health and safety of the communities to which those individuals return, the reentry pathway must not be littered with barriers, but rather paved with a fair opportunity for success. Clinton will work to remove barriers and create pathways to employment, housing, health care, education, and civic participation, including:

• Taking executive action to “ban the box” for federal employers and contractors, so that applicants have an opportunity to demonstrate their qualifications before being asked about their criminal records.
  
  
• Supporting legislation to restore voting rights to individuals who have served their sentences.
  

• Disability rights
• Early childhood education
• Economy
• Gun violence prevention
• Health care
• Immigration reform
• Infrastructure
• K–12 education
• Labor
• LGBT equality
• National security
• Paid leave
• Racial justice
• Rural communities
• Small business
• Social Security and Medicare
• Substance use disorder and addiction
• Veterans, the armed forces, and their families
• Voting rights
• Wall Street and corporate America
• Women’s rights and opportunity
• Workforce and skills

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