I found this article to be useful. I’m shocked one of the topics is not the national debt.
How Trump and Harris Compare on Key Policy Issues
A guide to where the candidates stand on taxes, healthcare, immigration, abortion access, foreign affairs and other topics
ADRIENNE TONG/WSJ; REUTERS, AFP, UNSPLASH
By WSJ Staff
Sept. 9, 2024 at 5:00 am ET
The election on Nov. 5 offers American voters a choice between two presidential candidates with differing views on a range of policy issues. Here is how former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris stand on issues ranging from climate change to healthcare and jobs. This package of stories is a guide to help voters understand where the candidates agree and disagree.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Federal Reserve
Personal taxes
Corporate taxes
Trade and tariffs
Healthcare
Immigration
Reproductive rights
Education
Energy and the environment
NATO
Iran
Ukraine and Russia
Middle East
China
North Korea
Federal Reserve
Kamala Harris
Harris said she respects central-bank independence, continuing a precedent enforced by President Biden. “As president, I would never interfere in the decisions that the Fed makes,” she told reporters in August. As a senator in 2018, she voted against Jerome Powell’s confirmation as chair. Powell was reappointed in 2022 by Biden.
Harris hasn’t said what kind of people she would pick to lead the central bank. She has argued that corporate greed has contributed to the high inflation of the past three years, and she has proposed rules against price gouging that could become price controls. Price controls were used with little success to address high inflation in the early 1970s. [Speculation of the Journal’s part about price controls.]
Donald Trump
The president shapes the Federal Reserve by appointing members to its board. As president, Trump frequently bashed Powell, his pick to lead the central bank, and demanded lower interest rates. He has said he wouldn’t keep Powell after his current four-year term as chair expires in 2026. Trump said in August that, as president, he should have a greater say in how the Fed sets interest rates, and he has said there are other ways to bring down inflation without raising rates.
Republican members of Congress have voiced concern about eroding central-bank independence by pressuring the Fed to keep rates low. White House pressure to stimulate the economy by keeping interest rates low contributed to the high inflation of the 1970s.
Personal taxes
Donald Trump
The bulk of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts expire at the end of next year, and he wants to extend them indefinitely, preserving the lower tax rates, larger standard deduction and bigger child tax credit that Republicans put in place seven years ago. The tax cuts also include a higher estate-tax exemption and a tax break for closely held businesses. Extending all of that would save taxpayers about $4 trillion over a decade—and Trump hasn’t clearly said how he would avoid increasing budget deficits.
With scant details, Trump has floated a steady stream of new tax breaks on top of that, including a tax exemption for tips, an end to income taxes on Social Security benefits and a new deduction for expenses associated with newborns. He has also criticized Biden’s expansion of Internal Revenue Service enforcement, and he could curtail those efforts as president.
Kamala Harris
Harris would keep President Biden’s pledge to prevent tax increases on households making under $400,000. That includes extending expiring tax cuts for about 97% of Americans. Beyond that, she backs the no-tax-on-tips idea and an expanded refundable child tax credit that would provide $3,000 per child to most parents and up to $6,000 for parents of newborns.
Beyond letting some Trump tax cuts expire, Harris supports about $5 trillion worth of tax increases from Biden’s most recent budget. That plan would raise top marginal tax rates on some income to as high as 44.6%, though she would set a top capital-gains rate of 33%, below Biden’s proposed level.
She didn’t signal any distance from Biden’s other plans to transform taxation of capital gains. Under that approach, unrealized gains above $5 million, with some exceptions, would be taxed at death instead of being exempt; capital gains above $1 million would be taxed at ordinary income rates instead of today’s lower rates. Households worth at least $100 million would face a 25% minimum tax, including annual taxes on unrealized gains.
Corporate taxes
Kamala Harris
Like Biden, Harris would raise the corporate-tax rate to 28% from 21% and, at more than $1.3 trillion over a decade, that is one of the single largest revenue-raising items in her plan.
She would also raise taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign income, as part of implementing the global minimum-tax agreement that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen helped negotiate.
Harris would also take the new corporate alternative minimum tax—set at 15% of financial-statement income for large profitable companies—and bump it up to 21%. She would quadruple the new 1% tax on stock buybacks, and she would also impose new limits on companies’ ability to deduct executive compensation.
Donald Trump
Unlike most of the 2017 tax law, the corporate-tax-rate cut that Republicans put in place doesn’t expire after 2025. Trump, having gotten the tax rate down to 21% from 35%, wants to push it even lower. At times, he has talked about a 20% rate, while other times he has set 15% as a target. As with his individual tax-cut plans, he hasn’t specified how he would prevent the budget deficit from increasing.
A full extension of the tax cuts might also bring back other corporate-tax provisions, including immediate write-offs for capital investment and research expenses and lighter limits on interest deductions.
Trade and tariffs
Donald Trump
In his first term, Trump broke with decades of bipartisan support for liberalizing trade by imposing steep tariffs on China, and more targeted tariffs on steel, aluminum and products from other countries, including allies. In a second term, Trump has said he would go further, imposing a tariff of at least 60% on China and 10% to 20% on the rest of the world.
Smart tariffs will not create inflation, they will combat inflation. [if he says it it must be true?]
— Donald Trump
Exactly how much tariffs rise, though, is unclear. Trump has also called for reciprocity, that is, setting tariffs at the same level other countries impose on the U.S.—mostly under 10%. It would also depend on Congress. Trump wants to end “permanent normal trade relations” with China, which extends to China the benefits of membership in the World Trade Organization. That, however, would require an act of Congress, as would permanent changes to tariff rates. Trump could raise tariffs by himself using executive authority granted by several laws, although he may face opposition in court.
Kamala Harris
Harris would for the most part follow the trade policy of President Biden, who has maintained most of Trump’s tariffs on China while raising some, such as on electric vehicles, and negotiated resolutions to disputes over steel and commercial aircraft with key allies. He has maintained Trump’s blocking of new appointments to the WTO’s dispute-settlement body, effectively neutering its enforcement role, while negotiating changes to how it operates.
Harris was one of the few senators to vote against ratification of the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020, which Trump negotiated to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, because, she said, it didn’t do enough to address climate change. That suggests she is even less fond of traditional trade deals than Biden, who has prioritized workers over consumers in trade matters. His Indo-Pacific Economic Framework with 14 mostly Pacific nations enhances cooperation on tax, digital trade and supply chains without reducing tariffs. A spokesperson said Harris would “employ targeted and strategic tariffs to support American workers.”
Healthcare
Kamala Harris
Harris cast the tiebreaking vote to pass the massive package known as the Inflation Reduction Act, which gave the U.S. government for the first time the power to negotiate the price of prescription drugs it buys for Medicare patients.
She has promised that she would speed up the pace of those negotiations, cap everyone’s out-of-pocket drug spending at $2,000 a year overall and $35 a month for insulin, and crack down on pharmaceutical companies with noncompetitive business practices. “For years Big Pharma has often inflated the price of lifesaving medications,” she said Aug. 15 at an appearance with Biden.
In her previous run for president, Harris supported a version of Medicare for All that would give everyone health insurance and allow private insurers to offer plans in a tightly regulated system. In this campaign, she has backed off that proposal. She has also proposed working with states to cancel patients’ medical debts.
Donald Trump
Trump has pledged to bring down prescription drug costs but hasn’t said how exactly he would do that. Near the end of his first term in office, his administration rolled out a “most-favored nation” proposal to ensure that the U.S. didn’t pay more than other similar countries for certain Medicare drugs, but the Biden administration canceled the pilot study. Another Trump rule on Medicare drug rebates was also never implemented.
Trump has vowed to protect Medicare and bring down healthcare costs overall. Despite his previous ambition to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, he said in April that he now plans to keep it and improve it. “It’s much too expensive now, and it’s not very good,” he said in a video on Truth Social. “We’re going to make it much better, much stronger.” [How?]
Policy groups with ties to Trump, including the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, have called for restructuring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, characterizing the agency as too heavy-handed with its pandemic advice.
Immigration
Donald Trump
Trump has made his primary objective clear: to deport as many immigrants in the country illegally as he can, a measure he says is necessary after illegal crossings hit a record high under Biden. He hasn’t made clear how, as president, he could carry out his mass-deportation plan. Without Congress, the president wouldn’t have enough money or detention space, and he would have trouble finding most of the immigrants in question, who live in blue-leaning states that have declined to work with federal immigration authorities.
Beyond that, Trump has promised to return to an array of first-term immigration policies, including Remain in Mexico and reinstating and expanding the travel ban on several Muslim-majority nations. He has also vowed to halt all refugee admissions, reduce legal immigration to the U.S. and end the automatic granting of citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., a right enshrined in the Constitution. [How?]
Kamala Harris
Harris has staked out a decidedly more moderate position on immigration than her recent Democratic predecessors, reflecting the changing politics of the issue following a record surge of illegal border crossings under the Biden administration. Harris, for example, says she supports allocating more money for immigration enforcement, and she even featured in a recent campaign ad images of the border wall built by Trump.
Harris has promised she would sign a bipartisan Senate border deal negotiated earlier this year that was blocked by Republicans. That bill would have given the president the authority to stop processing asylum seekers if crossings rose too high. At the same time, that measure would have increased legal immigration to the U.S., a principle Harris still supports. She has endorsed providing a path to citizenship for longtime immigrants in the country illegally, and would continue controversial Biden administration programs allowing migrants to enter the country legally to seek asylum.
Reproductive rights
Kamala Harris
Harris has been a more vocal supporter of abortion rights than Biden, but in practice her policies would be largely a continuation of the current administration’s. Harris has said she supports codifying the same protections found in Roe v. Wade into law nationwide. That would make abortion legal for any reason through fetal viability—about halfway through a typical pregnancy—or after that if a woman’s life or health is in danger.
A Harris administration could also continue fighting for abortion access in the courts. The Supreme Court declined this term to fully resolve cases involving abortion pills and access to the procedure in medical emergencies, and a future administration will have a role in deciding how to proceed with those cases.
To truly protect reproductive freedoms, we must restore the protections of Roe. Because, you see, what the United States Supreme Court took, Congress can put back in place.
— Kamala Harris
Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be.
— Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Trump appointed three U.S. Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating federal constitutional protections for abortion, and has said the issue should now be settled state-by-state. The former president has said he won’t sign a national abortion ban if it were to come across his desk. Under the current patchwork of state laws, abortion is banned or heavily restricted in about 18 states and largely legal in the rest of the country.
Some antiabortion leaders want a future Republican administration to enforce the Comstock Act, a 19th-century law that forbids shipping abortion-related material across state lines. Trump has indicated he wouldn’t block access to abortion pills.
Education
Donald Trump
Trump has pledged to push for “universal school choice,” to cut funding to “any school pushing Critical Race Theory” or transgender ideology, and to “impose real standards” on universities. [sounds like small government?]
Many promises would be hard to pull off absent large Republican majorities in Congress. As president, Trump made little headway expanding private-school subsidies and failed to close the Education Department, which he has said he would try to do again.
Trump could have the biggest impact through enforcement of existing laws. He has promised to undo a Biden administration rule extending Title IX protections to LGBTQ students. He has suggested that he would open civil-rights investigations into diversity efforts that conservatives say are discriminatory against white and Asian students.
Trump has also vowed to use the accreditation system to force universities to “defend the American tradition and Western civilization” and eliminate “Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats.”
Matt Barnum
Kamala Harris
In her initial run for president in 2019, Harris called for universal pre-K, higher teacher pay and more affordable higher education. Though her camp hasn’t offered a formal education plan this election cycle, Harris has mentioned all those issues again in recent public appearances.
“God knows we don’t pay you enough,” she told attendees at an American Federation of Teachers meeting in July. She has also stressed the need to ease the student-loan burden for public servants—including teachers—and for students who attended predatory for-profit colleges.
The Democratic Party platform calls for free, universal preschool for 4-year-olds and better funding to support students with disabilities, and opposes private-school vouchers.
Harris has also pushed to expand civil-rights protections for LGBTQ students and staff, and criticized efforts to eliminate diversity programs from schools. As many Republican-led states have adopted restrictions on classroom material, Harris has blasted book bans and talked about the importance of teaching America’s “true and full history.”
Energy and the environment
Kamala Harris
The Inflation Reduction Act, for which Harris cast the tiebreaking vote in 2022, provided several hundred billion dollars in grants, loans and tax incentives to promote renewable energy, reduce the use of fossil fuels and help communities prepare for the worst effects of climate change.
While campaigning for the 2020 presidential nomination, Harris said she would ban fracking, a form of oil and gas drilling prevalent in the swing state of Pennsylvania. In a recent interview with CNN, Harris said her position has shifted because the clean energy law is working.
What I have seen is we can grow and we can increase a thriving green energy economy without banning fracking.
— Kamala Harris
During her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris said that many freedoms are at stake in the coming election, including “the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
Donald Trump
Trump has called climate change “a hoax” and said he would eliminate a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles that has spurred the industry. Trump has also vowed to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and its subsidies for green technologies such as wind-turbine manufacturing, solar components and battery plants.
The Republican platform posted on Trump’s campaign website pledges to lift “restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal.” That would mean the attempted repeal of Biden administration rules on coal-burning power plants, vehicle tailpipe emissions and methane leaks from oil-and-gas operations.
A separate effort known as Project 2025 and written by former Trump advisers suggests replacing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service with private companies and limiting federal climate-change research. Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025 and its recommendations.
[Trump has also said “drill baby drill” and that he would reduce our energy and electricity bills by 50 percent within a short period of time (I can’t remember the exact time frame).]
[He would also pull us out of the Paris Accord again, right?]
[Climate change is not a hoax. Rrasonable prople can disagree on what steps we should take but not on the science.]
NATO
Donald Trump
John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser, is confident Trump will seek to withdraw the U.S. from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Bolton describes Trump in 2018 coming “within an inch” of calling for the U.S. to leave the alliance—during a NATO Summit, no less. “He really wants out,” he said.
The U.S. is still in NATO after four years of Trump, and Biden signed legislation in 2023 blocking presidents from unilaterally withdrawing from the alliance. But Trump continuously blasts allies that don’t spend the required 2% of GDP on defense, wrongly asserting they are delinquent on paying dues to the alliance. In February, Trump said he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to those countries.
At a minimum, confidants say Trump will aim to downshift America’s European commitments, shifting much of the security responsibilities over to allies on the continent.
Kamala Harris
Harris, just like Biden, would work to strengthen NATO and keep allies united in the defense of Ukraine.
“Our sacred commitment to NATO remains ironclad,” Harris told an audience at the Munich Security Conference in February. “And I do believe, as I have said before, NATO is the greatest military alliance the world has ever known.”
Harris is expected to rely on NATO as a whole and individual allies to defend Ukraine and deter further Russian aggression. She will also demand that NATO members spend more on their own defense, taking on more of the burden for the continent’s security. But Harris is unlikely to break any relationship with an ally regardless of their military budget.
Iran
Kamala Harris
Harris, like others in the Biden administration, hoped the U.S. might re-enter the Iran nuclear deal upon entering office in 2021. That effort failed, but Harris hasn’t given up hope of one day putting the U.S. back into the agreement, potentially constraining Iran’s ballistic missile program as part of a renewed pact. Harris hasn’t said much more about her Iran plans. But she is advised by top aides with expertise on the country: Phil Gordon, her national security adviser, and Ilan Goldenberg, who is now on the campaign.
As vice president, Harris has mainly confronted Iran with mixed results. In January, Tehran-backed proxies killed three American service members in Jordan. Three months later, Iran launched the first direct attack on Israel since the regime came to power in 1979, prompting the U.S. and partners to successfully defend Israel.
Donald Trump
In his first term, Trump exacted a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, an attempt to starve the regime of funds for its proxies and military programs. He claims it was so successful that, had he won in 2020, Tehran would have had no choice but to make a grander nuclear deal with him. “I would have made a great deal with them—no nuclear weapons,” Trump told Bloomberg in July. [Right.]
Pressure will be on Trump to once again place sanctions and other pressures on Iran, giving the regime no choice but to change its foreign policy wholesale. It isn’t clear that Tehran would make any deals with Trump, as Iran’s leaders don’t trust him to abide by agreements and, most notably, the former president ordered a top Iranian general killed. In response, Iran has plotted to kill Trump and other top officials from his administration.
Ukraine and Russia
Donald Trump
Trump has repeatedly promised to strike a peace deal for Ukraine in 24 hours by threatening Kyiv and Moscow with dire consequences if they don’t cooperate. While such a quick solution appears unlikely, Trump’s promise signals he will quickly try to re-establish ties with Moscow to see what kind of leverage might work in pushing the Kremlin toward a settlement in Ukraine.
I’ll meet with Putin, I’ll meet with Zelensky. They both have weaknesses and they both have strengths. And within 24 hours that war will be settled. It will be over. It will be absolutely over.
— Donald Trump
Trump’s previous dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin led to few tangible agreements, however, and so Trump’s direction on the Russia-Ukraine war will likely be determined by his appointees. Some senior Republicans who could have top positions in a second Trump administration, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have called for further tightening sanctions on Moscow and dramatically ramping up military support for Ukraine.
How far Trump would go in supporting Ukraine might also be determined by the scarcity of resources: Trump has repeatedly called China a grave threat to U.S. interests, and has promised to maintain pressure on Iran and North Korea, too. As before, he would call on Europe to do more for Ukraine so that the U.S. can devote more resources to China.
Kamala Harris
Harris has vowed to continue the Biden administration strategy of firmly supporting Ukraine. But she will be seeking aid for Kyiv at a time of rising congressional opposition to big aid packages such as the $60 billion passed earlier this year that buttressed Ukrainian defenses. To compensate, Harris will be looking to traditional allies and NATO to take on more of the financial burden so that Ukraine can fight Russia to a negotiated settlement.
Her administration is likely to say little about the delicate question of when to open negotiations with Russia. While U.S. officials had hoped to avoid a protracted war of attrition in Ukraine, they note that it could take years for the West’s unprecedented sanctions on Russia to be fully felt there. U.S. officials hope the Kremlin could become more amenable to concessions if it sees signs that living standards are beginning to erode in the next year or two.
Middle East
Kamala Harris
Since Oct. 7, Harris has been one of the administration’s most outspoken advocates of a cease-fire in Gaza and a two-state solution, signaling that a Harris administration might be tougher on Israel than Biden has been. Early on she called attention to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and has pressed Israeli leaders hard in private to do more to protect civilians. She has also publicly laid out an American vision for postconflict Gaza.
I remain committed since I’ve been on October 8 to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution.
— Kamala Harris
But Harris has also shown herself to be a strong proponent of Israel, condemning Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack and meeting with the families of Americans held in Gaza. So while she may be willing to press Israel harder to end the war, she may not go so far as to threaten to halt weapons sales.
“President Joe Biden and I are unwavering in our commitment to Israel’s security,” Harris said in a March 3 speech in Selma, Ala.
Donald Trump
One of Trump’s most touted accomplishments on Middle East policy was the Abraham Accords, a breakthrough that normalized relations between Israel and the U.A.E. and Israel and Bahrain. While both the Trump and Biden administrations have pushed to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, that is likely a long shot after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza.
Trump in a second term would likely continue to support Israel’s defense, but the candidate has also said publicly that he would push Israel to “finish up” its war—although he hasn’t specified how he would do so.
Elsewhere in the region, Trump would likely continue trying to bring American troops home. While Biden has kept small contingents of U.S. service members in Syria and Iraq, where Islamic State is still a threat, Trump would likely strive to withdraw American forces.
China
Donald Trump
Trump’s tough approach to China, both from an economic and military perspective, would likely continue in a second term. He has promised to impose a tariff of 60% or more on Chinese goods, building on the tariffs he imposed in his first term as a way to reduce the trade deficit with China.
Meanwhile, Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s U.S. trade representative and a likely candidate for a senior post in a second Trump administration, proposed in a new book to raise tariffs on China, cut off investment between the two countries, block Chinese social-media companies, and other measures until China’s trade surplus disappears.
“President Trump looks at China as an economic adversary,” retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg said in an interview, stressing that he doesn’t speak for Trump.
In his first term, Trump made countering China’s rapidly expanding military and aggressive moves in the South China Sea a top priority. In a second term, Trump would likely continue to push back on China’s military action and rally partners such as Japan and South Korea to keep Beijing in check in the Pacific.
Kamala Harris
Harris is poised to continue Biden’s approach of countering China by strengthening partnerships in the Pacific. Like Biden, Harris has made clear in public remarks that she sees alliances as critical to prevent wars and maintain stability. That is especially true in the Pacific, where she believes these alliances are a bulwark against China.
Harris has visited the region four times as vice president, including a meeting with President Xi Jinping in November 2022 in Bangkok, according to an aide. She is particularly invested in continuing to boost the U.S.-Philippine relationship: she was the highest-ranking official to ever visit the island of Palawan, on the South China Sea.
She has also signaled that she opposes China’s pressure campaign against Taiwan. “We will continue to support Taiwan’s self-defense, consistent with our longstanding policy,” Harris said in a Sept. 28 visit to the USS Howard at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan.
North Korea
Kamala Harris
In her Democratic convention speech, Harris said as president she would “not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong Un, who are rooting for Trump.”
Harris isn’t expected to substantially deviate from Biden’s approach to North Korea, which has included an open invitation for talks without preconditions—an offer Pyongyang has rejected.
She would likely build upon the administration’s work to tie South Korea and Japan closer together to contain North Korea. Sanctions pressure on Pyongyang is likely to persist, though it has had minimal impact on its nuclear and missile programs, as are attempts to squeeze its methods of earning cash through illicit cyber means.
The Democratic platform made no explicit mention of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, but a Harris campaign official later said it would remain a key objective. In 2022, following a visit to the demilitarized zone, Harris said the U.S. commitment to South Korea’s defense was “ironclad.”
Donald Trump
As president, Trump exchanged fiery, threatening rhetoric with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before pivoting sharply toward a policy of intense and historically unprecedented engagement. The pair met in Singapore in 2018 and again in Hanoi in 2019 in an attempt to broker a nuclear deal in exchange for eased sanctions. Trump’s outreach went against the recommendations of many of his own national-security advisers and ultimately amounted to nothing.
The 2024 GOP platform contains no mention of North Korea, but a deal-loving Trump could seek to again negotiate with Kim if he returns to office. Trump has spoken admiringly of Kim—and other authoritarian leaders—since leaving office, and he kept in his personal files friendly letters the two exchanged when he was president. During his speech accepting the Republican nomination, Trump, speaking of Kim, said: “I think he misses me.”
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