From Jobs to Health Care, Here’s Where Biden and Trump Stand on Six Key Issues

On climate, while Trump rolls back hundreds of environmental protections, Biden says he’ll rejoin the Paris Agreement.

President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden have very different views on how to tackle the problems facing the United States.

Health Care

Biden

The former vice president proposes to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) so that 97% of Americans are insured. This includes the creation of a public option, a government-run insurance plan available to anyone. He plans to combat the rising cost of drugs by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices with drug manufacturers, as well as lowering the Medicare eligibility from 65 to 60. 

Trump

The Affordable Care Act that provides healthcare to more than 20 million Americans is being challenged again this fall in the US Supreme Court. Additionally, Trump’s executive order to protect coverage of preexisting conditions lacks specifics, experts say, and those protections are only possible through legislative, not legal, action. 

RELATED: Joe Biden Has Released His Healthcare Plan. Here’s What It Means for You.

Economy

Biden

He has a plan to amp up spending on American products and technological development that would create 18.6 million jobs and $1 trillion more in economic growth than President Donald Trump’s plan. He will increase the tax rate on the highest income earners (about $510,000 or more) from 37% to nearly 40%, while making it clear that he will not raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year.

Trump

While he promises to create 10 million new jobs in 10 months and enact fair trade deals that protect American jobs, during the first two months of the COVID-19 crisis more than 20 million Americans filed jobless claims, and Trump’s escalating trade war with China, applying tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods, has had a direct negative impact on the manufacturing sector. The unemployment rate went from 4.4% in March to 14.7% in April. 

Immigration

Biden 

Plans to modernize the immigration system and implement effective border screening. He proposes increasing annual refugee admissions to 125,000 and continuing to raise it periodically, depending on the severity of the global refugee crisis. This will boost the economy, as a study found that companies founded by foreign-born individuals created 42% more jobs than companies founded by US-born individuals.

Trump

His plan includes blocking undocumented immigrants from becoming eligible for taxpayer-funded welfare, health care, and free college tuition; ending sanctuary cities; and requiring new immigrants to be able to support themselves financially. After taking office, Trump began separating families at the border under his administration’s “zero tolerance order,” deporting the parents and putting the children in ICE detention centers. 

Climate

Biden

Will invest $2 trillion in new infrastructure, public transit, agriculture, clean electricity, buildings and housing, and the electric vehicle industry, in order to build a 100% clean energy economy, ensuring the US has a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050. Biden will also rejoin the Paris Agreement, which aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, including in developing countries.

Trump

Although he proposes partnering with other nations to clean up our planet’s oceans, Trump has shown skepticism about climate change, which he called a hoax before taking office, and has continued to question as president. Fulfilling a campaign promise from 2016, he rolled back hundreds of environmental protections, including limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and vehicles, and protections for federal waterways across the country. 

Education

Biden 

Biden will enact legislation to ensure that individuals, including those attending school part-time, as well as DACA recipients, can go to community college for up to two years without having to pay tuition. He promises to forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt for those who make up to $125,000 a year, attended two-year and four-year public colleges and universities, historically Black colleges and universities, or underfunded minority-serving institutions. He will also cancel a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person and forgo the remainder of loans after 20 years, with no tax burden.

Trump

His plan is two-fold: to provide school choice to every child in the US and to teach American Exceptionalism, a conservative belief that the United States possesses qualities that make it unique and special.

RELATED: 3 Ways Joe Biden Plans to Expand Social Security Benefits

COVID-19

Biden

He promises to implement nationwide testing and tracing, doubling the number of drive-through testing sites; establish a sustainable supply chain for PPE; protect older Americans and others at high risk; provide small businesses with the resources they need to reopen safely; and offer tools and resources to parents and other caregivers to help them make informed decisions on sending their children to school, and assist them with their children’s remote learning.

Trump

On his website the president promises to develop a vaccine by the end of 2020 and “return to normal in 2021.”  But vaccines must go through rigorous testing for safety and effectiveness before they are approved for public use. Governments and private firms are working to achieve an effective vaccine for the new coronavirus by 2021. The president has also pushed for schools to reopen in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.