Polls show that we are approaching our date with the November 8 election as a 50-50 America when it comes to choosing between a self-styled billionaire who might initiate a major war if some foreign leader insults him, and a woman whom the FBI has demonstrated has not even a passing acquaintance with the truth. Set aside the peculiar personal proclivities of these candidates, Donald Trump for bombast, incoherence and narcissism, Hillary Clinton for concealment, lies, and tight self-control. The good news is that when we concentrate on policy issues, we don't lack for choice.
Start with taxation. Trump and the Republicans want to cut taxes, with the largest benefits going to the highest earners, who of course pay the most taxes. Out go capital gains taxes and the estate tax. Down goes the top individual rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent in the Trump plan and to 33 percent in House speaker Paul Ryan's plan. Down comes the top corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. In come consumption taxes, at least in Ryan's version. Clinton would trump Trump's cut-and-borrow-and-spend with that old Franklin Roosevelt standby, tax-and-spend. She would raise taxes on the rich immediately, and on everyone else when the bills come due for free college educations, a $275 billion, five-year infrastructure program, enriched benefits for widows, bailouts for students with loans they cannot or do not care to repay, $5,000 per family to cover uninsured costs of drugs and medical care, universal pre-K, child care and whatever else might occur to her as the campaign wends its way around the country. In order to discourage "short-termism," which Democrats blame for the failure of business investment and wages to rise, Clinton would raise capital gains taxes on investments held for only two-to-three years from 23.8 percent to 36 percent, and lower them every year thereafter by four percentage point until they reach the current long-term rate of 20 percent.
Trump did score a victory last week when the Republican platform committee endorsed his idea of building a wall to keep out illegal Mexican immigrants. The Donald, however, did not win on all points, especially when it came to social issues. "This is a statement of not Donald Trump's campaign, but of the Republican Party," announced Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and a very conservative force on the platform committee. Clinton would replace the Mexico-U.S. wall with a welcome mat and try to devise a way to grant de facto amnesty to millions of what liberals call "undocumented" rather than "illegal" immigrants, notwithstanding a recent court decision declaring President Obama's effort to do just that unconstitutional.
On trade, both candidates are leaning protectionist, while denying any such thing, claiming they seek only fairness. Trump would re-negotiate NAFTA to make it fairer to America, kill plans for trade agreements with the EU and Pacific Rim countries, and haul China before the World Trade Organisation to redress "the greatest job theft in history." Ryan, a host of congressmen and Trump are calling for a trade deal with Britain, Trump saying the U.K. will "always be at the front of the line" when it comes to negotiating a trade deal. Clinton, on the other hand, will most likely retain Obama's priority: a trade deal with the EU, and Britain at the back of the queue, although she is unlikely to repeat Obama's inflammatory language. She will pursue the complaints against China that Obama has recently lodged at the WTO. Clinton also rather likes her husband's NAFTA deal with Mexico and Canada, both of which countries would be members of the TPP, but has newly discovered doubts about the Trans-Pacific Partnership which she once called the "gold standard in trade agreements". The betting in Washington is that once she is re-installed in the White House, a few wording changes will persuade her to sign the TPP, not a bad thing given the need to reassure our allies that we are not conceding leadership of the Asia-Pacific region to China.
On health care, Republicans would repeal Obamacare and substitute for it one of several plans that gives consumers the right to select from a variety of insurance plans, using tax credits or vouchers to pay the premiums. Clinton, under pressure from Sanders, has agreed to push for a so-called public option, an NHS-style government-run system that would compete with the private sector.
That leaves two important economic issues: the minimum wage and the environment. Trump initially opposed any increase, but more recently says he favors a raise from the $7.25 per hour set by federal law, with each state deciding on the amount, depending on market conditions. In a further effort to woo senator Sanders' white, young followers—a demographic in which she is weak—Clinton adopted the socialist's demand for a phased-in $15 federally imposed minimum. No one seems to have noticed that the market has begun to drive up low wages, Starbucks and JP Morgan being the latest to announce raises for their lowest paid workers.
Trump, like many Republicans, denies that the planet is warming, that the use of fossil fuels could be causing any warming that might be occurring. He would repudiate the emissions-reduction deal made in Paris with 200 nations, eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency, and remove impediments to the development of our oil, gas and coal resources. Clinton would double down on Obama's anti-fossil fuel regulations and subsidise renewables so that wind and solar can power every home in America by 2027. Trump's promise to revive the U.S. coal industry, and Clinton's to light, heat and cool every home with renewables substitute hope for serious policymaking. But both know they will have departed the political scene when that becomes apparent.
On the non-economic issues Republicans would bar anyone on the no-fly list from acquiring a gun for 72 hours, until a court could review the case, while the Democrats want a ban subject only to an appeal to Homeland Security, a long and probably unsuccessful process if our friend's experience in getting off the list is any guide. Republicans would ban abortion, and so would Trump, a late arrival in the "right to life" camp. Clinton leads the charge for "women's right to choose". Democrats will give felons who have served their time the right to vote, which in swing-state Virginia would probably give them another 206,000 votes (205,998 if a "wanted" sex offender cannot be found and another now in a New York jail for crimes subsequent to his release is unable to travel to Virginia) if the state Supreme Court fails to uphold a lower court ruling that governor Terry McAuliffe, a long-time key Clinton fundraiser, has no such power. Republicans are opposed to such a reform, although they are leading believers in the idea that America should remain the land of the second chance. Consistency is the hobgoblin of political minds, such as they are.
These are two widely different visions of America, which each candidate would carve in stone by appointing Supreme Court justices who share their visions when age produces several retirements. Republicans' economic plans basically aim at growing the national pie, Democrats' at redistributing the existing pie to reduce inequality. Republicans, although not certainly Trump, would prevent further growth in government intrusion into economic life, or with luck reduce it, Hillary Clinton aims at a major expansion of the government's presence in health care, education, wage setting and the use of energy.
Bill Clinton is the president who twenty years ago declared "The era of big government is over." A Hillary victory would prove him a poor prophet. He won't mind.