Clinton and Trump on the Issues
JOURNAL: ISSUE 3 - 2016
Paid for by International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Political Action Committee (BACPAC), 620 F St., NW, Washington, DC. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
For over 30 years, BAC, through an independent polling firm, has conducted statistically valid and confidential telephone surveys of randomly selected numbers. The latest poll of U.S. BAC members, conducted in January 2016 shows that 82% of members surveyed will cast their ballots in November and 91% of them agreed that the IU should provide them with information on the candidates' positions on the issues rather than "telling us whom to vote for" or based solely on party affiliation. We have included a convenient side-by side analysis of where the candidates stand on the issues that will determine the future for our families and our work for years to come.
| CLINTON-KAINE | TRUMP-PENCE |
CONSTRUCTION AND LABOR ISSUESProject Labor Agreements |
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CLINTON-KAINE stand with union construction workers to support project labor agreements that utilize skilled tradespeople and help recruit and train members of the local community. Clinton said that she would not let anyone undermine project labor agreements. |
TRUMP-PENCE agenda includes an end to project labor agreements. Trump has refused to build with PLAs on his development projects. As governor, Pence voted YES to prohibit project labor agreements in DHS contracts and voted NO on funding for federal project labor agreements. |
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Hillary Clinton will improve enforcement of the Davis-Bacon Act. Her Davis-Bacon Improvement Act will allow workers to monitor Davis-Bacon compliance by giving them access under the Freedom of Information Act to the payroll records that contractors file with the federal government. The legislation would also increase penalties for certain violations. |
Workers from several Trump organization subcontractors said they were not being paid the prevailing wage. Pence "championed" repealing Indiana's prevailing-wage laws and said "wages on public projects should be set by the marketplace and not by government bureaucracy." This potentially reduces union wages, creating an unfair advantage for non-union contractors. |
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CLINTON-KAINE have always believed that unions are critical to providing safe, good-paying jobs for workers and their families. Clinton said that when unions are strong, families are strong and America is strong. She also said that labor would always have a champion in the White House and a seat at the table if she is president. CLINTON-KAINE will fight against attacks on collective bargaining and work to strengthen workers' voices. |
Donald Trump has admitted that when he has a choice between union and non-union labor for his construction projects, he goes with non-union labor. He is also a union buster at his own hotels. Pence has a long anti-labor and anti-worker record; as the Indiana Governor, he voted NO on restricting employer interference in union organizing. As Congressman, he also voted YES to prohibit collective bargaining at the Transportation Security Administration. |
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CLINTON-KAINE believe that the so-called Right-to-Work laws weaken unions, leading to lower wages and fewer rights for workers. Clinton spoke out against RTW laws and said they are "wrong for workers and wrong for America." |
Trump says he loves so-called Right-to-Work (RTW) laws that drive down wages and benefits, undermine worker protections and safety, and have virtually eliminated unions in some states. As the Indiana Governor, Pence has worked to make sure Indiana stays as a RTW state. |
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CLINTON-KAINE believe that no one who works full time should live in poverty. As U.S. Senator, Kaine introduced legislation in 2015 to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020. Clinton supports the bill and urges cities and local governments to raise it to $15 per hour. Clinton also supports the Obama administration's expansion of overtime rules to millions more workers. |
TRUM-PENCE think that American wages are too high. Trump opposes raising the minimum wage and says that the U.S. automakers should force workers to accept lower wages by threatening to move production to lower-wage states. As the Indiana Governor, Pence signed a bill into law prohibiting local governments from forcing businesses to raise minimum wages. Pence, as Congressman, also voted NO on increasing minimum wage to $7.25. |
ECONOMY / JOBS |
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From the start of her campaign, Hillary Clinton has promised an "economy that works for everyone." In her first 100 days in office, Clinton vows to enact massive investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, research and technology, clean energy, and small businesses. Her $275 billion investment in infrastructure would fix America's roads, buildings, and bridges and expand technology access, creating good-paying jobs for our members. Clinton's plan also provides tax incentives for companies that share profits with employees and places an exit tax on companies that move their headquarters overseas to pay a lower tax rate abroad. Clinton believes in investing in America's workforce to "empower Americans to live better lives" and to ensure they will always be the best in the world. She encourages high-quality apprenticeship and training programs that provide both career skills and good-paying jobs, putting forward a tax credit for businesses of $1,500 per apprentice. Under Clinton's plans, the economy would create 10.4 million jobs during her presidency, or 3.2 million more than expected under current law. http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/29/news/ |
Although Donald Trump has said he's created "thousands of jobs," there is no concrete economic plan with specifics on how to create jobs. Trump's official campaign website vows to "Make America Great Again!" but it doesn't say how. His big claim is that he will bring back American jobs - "from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places." While bashing companies for investing in foreign countries and sending jobs overseas, Trump has a large portion of his company's hotels and major real estate properties built overseas and has imported clothing from China and Mexico produced for his brand. If Trump's economic proposals are adopted, about 3.5 million Americans would lose their jobs, unemployment would jump back to 7%, home prices would fall, and the stock market would plummet. http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/28/news/economy/ donald-trump-economy-jobs/ |
HEALTHCARE |
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Hillary Clinton has led and will continue to lead the fight for universal, quality, and affordable healthcare for everyone in America. In the '90s, she worked to help pass the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which today covers 8 million kids. After the bill was passed, she closely monitored the progress and the CHIP enrollment rate. After 9/11, Clinton supported funding to rebuild New York and addressed the health concerns of the first responders at Ground Zero. She fought for better healthcare and benefits for wounded service members, veterans and members of the National Guard and Reserves. As First Lady, she fought to have Gulf War Syndrome recognized. As Senator on the Armed Services Committee, she fought to establish new services for military members and veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI). She worked to ensure that all members of the Reserves and National Guard and their families had health benefits and expand benefits afforded to surviving spouses. Clinton has never given up on the fight for universal coverage. Her healthcare plan includes defending and expanding the Affordable Care Act which covers 20 million people (including many BAC members), bringing down out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles, reducing the cost of prescription drugs, fighting for health insurance for the lowest-income Americans in every state by incentivizing states to expand Medicaid, expanding access to affordable healthcare to families regardless of immigration status, defending access to reproductive healthcare, doubling funding for community health centers, and supporting the healthcare workforce. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/
Hillary's Long Fight for LaborU.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) at a rally addressing the long-term health needs of 9/11 rescue workers and other first responders near Ground Zero on September 8, 2007 in New York City. From left, President of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York Gary LaBarbera, former President of New York State AFL-CIO Denis Hughes, Senator Clinton, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and former President of New York City Central Labor Council Ed Ott. |
Donald Trump vows to "repeal and replace" the Obamacare with "something terrific." Entitled "Healthcare Reform to Make America Great Again," his healthcare reform claims that doctors, clinics and hospitals would make it easier for consumers to compare prices of different procedures or exams. He did not specify, however, where and how the prices would be listed. Repealing and replacing the Obamacare comes with a steep tag - the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) finds that the costs of repealing ObamaCare and Trump's replacement is $270 billion over 10 years. Trump's healthcare reform not only will add to the deficit, but significantly reduce coverage. With current Obamacare policies in place, 27 million Americans will lack healthcare coverage in 2018, according to projections from the CBO. Fully repealing the Obamacare would increase that number by another 22 million. This number would include many BAC members who, due to lack of work or other reasons, have no other healthcare. Using the COB estimates, Trump's healthcare reform would only cover 5 percent of those 22 million people, meaning about 21 million would lose insurance coverage. In addition to repealing and replacing Obamacare, Trump proposes to transform Medicaid into a block grant to the states. This means the federal government would no longer pay for a portion of state Medicaid on a matching rate and instead would give a fixed allotment of dollars. Making this change and eliminating the ACA will likely hurt working people because their Medicaid Coverage will be limited and many will lose insurance. According to the CRFB, Trump campaign has not provided any information on the size of their proposed block grants, making it impossible to calculate any savings. http://crfb.org/blogs/analysis-donald-
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TRADE |
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Clinton opposes the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because it would harm jobs and wages in the United States, and says any future trade deals must protect public health and the rights of working people. As Senator from New York, Clinton voted against President George W. Bush's Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005 because it didn't protect Americans who might lose their jobs. Senator Kaine has always advocated for labor and environmental provisions in trade deals. He opposes the TPP because environmental and labor standards are not included in the treaty. http://time.com/4065320/hillary-clinton-opposes- |
Donald Trump talks tough on trade, but he has personally profited from NAFTA, and has a long history of outsourcing production of his own products to countries such as China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Mexico. And here in the United States, Donald Trump has repeatedly hired and exploited undocumented or foreign workers – including masonry workers in New York state. Governor Pence has repeatedly backed free trade deals with partners in every corner of the globe for more than a decade. He praised the North American Free Trade Agreement, and as Congressman, he voted for the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, and voiced support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. |
TAXES / TAXES CUT |
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Hillary Clinton plans to increase taxes on the wealthy by enacting a tax surcharge on multimillionaires who make more than $5 million per year – a measure that would only affect the top 0.02 percent of taxpayers. Raising taxes on the wealthy will also fund the infrastructure development and other job plans. She will also give tax cuts to the middle class and small businesses. Clinton thinks the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act did not go far enough to end the threat from too-big-to-fail banks. She proposes a risk fee levied on all banks with more than $50 billion in assets, high debt levels, or too much reliance on short-term funding. Clinton would also tax high-frequency traders. She would extend the statute of limitations for financial crimes, and require CEOs to personally pay part of any fines levied on their companies. She has also proposed an "exit tax" on companies that attempt a so-called "tax inversion." They would pay American taxes on any deferred foreign earnings. These Wall Street tax increases would raise $80 billion a year. http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-wall-street- curbs-on-wall-street-1444265885 |
Donald Trump has proposed cutting the nation's wealthiest earners' income tax rate from the current 39.6% down to 25%. He has also vowed to lower the business tax rate for corporations and small businesses alike to 15% -- down from the current top rate of 39%. Nonpartisan groups including the Tax Foundation and the Tax Policy Center estimate Trump's tax plan would add nearly $10 trillion to the debt over the next decade. Trump's companies would also benefit from his proposals to cut top income tax rates. As this Journalgoes to print, Trump has declined to release his personal income tax filings, and in the past, he has boasted of his strategies to minimize his tax payments. While his proposed reductions might sound attractive, it does little for working families other than raising the price tag on debt that future generations will be saddled with. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp /2016/08/08/economists- trump-tax-plan-offers-almost-nothing-for -the-middle-class/
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EDUCATION |
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Hillary Clinton has a proven record as a supporter of public education and working families, evidenced by her work at the Children's Defense Fund, as the First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the United States, and the A rating she earned as a U.S. Senator. That is why she earned NEA's "Friend of Education Award" in 1999. She has committed to being an advocate for educators and fighting to provide equal opportunity to have access to arts education, school nurses, librarians, and counselors, and funding so all students can succeed, regardless of their zip code. Clinton is a champion for college affordability. Her proposal would control the rising costs of higher education and reduce educational debt for those already with student loans. The plan provides states with grants for their public universities to ensure residents can access in-state tuition "debt-free," assuming that parents make a "reasonable contribution" and students work 10 hours a week. It would also cut federal student loan interest rates to the budget-neutral level for the federal government and allow Americans with student loan debt to refinance at today's lower interest rates. She supports career programs including union apprenticeship and training programs that provide both high-quality career skills and good-paying jobs. She also has specific policy proposals for early childhood education and K-12 education. She endorses universal pre-K, and would double the funding for Head Start and the Early Head Start Partnership grant program while cutting taxes to ease the burden of child care costs on families.http://www.strongpublicschools.org/ |
Education is not listed as an issue on Donald Trump's campaign website. One thing Trump is sure about is that he wants to cut the Department of Education "way, way, way down." He has not provided specifics on how much funding should be cut from the department, which administers Pell grants, provides oversight to the states to check on inequality of education between low-income and wealthy districts and is responsible for keeping national education data. Trump is in favor of for-profit colleges. Back in 2005, Trump started an online school called Trump University to teach the art of deal-making which never received accreditation, and the "University" didn't offer degrees. The New York Department of Education sent him a letter accusing him of misleading the public by running an unauthorized school, and he changed the name to Trump Entrepreneur Initiative in 2010. The New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued the company in 2013, saying it misrepresented its classes. The legal battles continue since a class action suit has been brought against the company by a student who spent $36,000 plus on Trump's investing tips. Trump is against teachers unions, saying "our public schools have grown up in a competition-free zone, surrounded by a very high union wall." Pence also attacks teacher unions and pushes market-focused education policies, rakes in money from for-profit charter chains, and limit teachers' collective bargaining rights through advocating charters and voucher programs across Indiana. https://thinkprogress.org/what-donald-trump- /2015/01/02/freedom-teach/ |
SOCIAL SECURITY |
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CLINTON-KAINE will fight to protect retirement security for workers and their families. Clinton supports strengthening and expanding Social Security, and has fought against efforts to privatize it or raise the retirement age. Senator Kaine opposes efforts to privatize Social Security. Doing so would leave our seniors vulnerable to volatile markets and would remove funding from the program. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/ clinton-kaine-excellent-fit-retirees/
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TRUMP-PENCE are building opposition to Social Security. Trump wrongly attacks immigrants and refugees for receiving Social Security. In fact, unauthorized workers do not receive Social Security but contribute to Social Security through their jobs. Trump's tax plan would cut taxes for the wealthiest by an average of $1.3 million a year, paid for by cutting education and putting Medicare at risk. Governor Pence once suggested making cuts to social security and Medicare programs to pay for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.
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VETERANS |
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Hillary Clinton has a strong record of service to veterans. In 2006 she introduced the Heroes at Home Act of 2006 to help family members care for veterans that return home with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries; she worked with Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate to increase the survivor benefits for military families from $12,000 to $100,000; she worked with Republicans to provide full military health benefits to National Guard members and reservists; she authored a new G. I. Bill of Rights to help veterans adjust and re-enter the workforce after deployment through educational opportunities, a new veteran-specific micro-loan program, and an expanded home loan program; she co-sponsored the Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007 to expand retirement pay and disability compensation for veterans disabled during their service; and she introduced the Defense Authorization Bill enacted in 2008 to allow families of wounded service members to take up to six months unpaid leave to care for their wounded family member. Unlike Trump, she opposes privatizing the Veterans Administration, saying "I'm absolutely against privatizing the V.A… this is another part of the Koch brothers' agenda. They've actually formed an organization to try to begin to convince Americans we should no longer have guaranteed healthcare, specialized care for our veterans. Let's fix the V.A., but we will never let it be privatized." http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clinton-a- |
In his July 11th speech in Virginia, Donald Trump described the Department of Veterans Affairs as a corrupt disaster and promised to privatize medical care for veterans. Concerned Veterans for America, which also pushes for national security policy reforms, described Trump's plan as "unserious." Trump University routinely ignored the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) which gives a Reservist or Guardsman the right to return to their old job with the days missed due to deployment, and fired them because of the conflict between their duties and work. Trump doesn't respect veterans who have made sacrifices to make our country safe. He slammed U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a decorated Vietnam War veteran, by saying McCain was not a war hero because he was captured by the North Vietnamese. Several veterans and family members of military personnel killed in the line of duty condemned Trump's rhetoric towards Muslim Americans and attack on the Muslim American parents of an Army soldier who was killed in Iraq. http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/06/03/ veterans-group-slams-trumps- unserious-plan-to-reform-the-va/ article/2575419 |
EQUAL RIGHTS |
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Hillary Clinton has long been a supporter of equal pay for women and was an original co-sponsor of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Hillary has been a vocal advocate for LGBT rights throughout her career. She fights for full federal equality for LGBT Americans, supports LGBT youth, parents, and elders, honors the military service of LGBT people, fights for an AIDS-free generation, protects transgender rights, and promotes human rights of LGBT people around the world. |
Donald Trump said the paid family leave could hurt the U.S. despite considerable evidence that it wouldn't. He regularly makes derogatory comments and repeatedly insulted women's appearances. Trump has been a consistent opponent of marriage equality. He supports for the so-called First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) which would expose LGBT people to more discrimination.
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ENVIRONMENT |
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Clinton and Kaine believe climate change is real and the impacts of climate change will disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities which suffer the worst losses during extreme weather and have the fewest resources to prepare. Clinton has a very strong environmental record going back decades from combating climate change to investing in clean energy to working to repeal Big Oil subsidies. Her comprehensive energy and climate agenda includes developing, defending and implementing federal energy and climate standards, rebuilding infrastructure like the run-down public housing and crumbling schools, ensuring safe and responsible fossil fuel production, revitalizing coal communities, and reducing oil consumption. |
Trump and Pence are largely in agreement on energy and the environment. Both are against regulations to limit carbon emissions and have doubts about the reality of climate change. As Governor of Indiana, Pence threatened to disobey the Obama administration's orders to lower carbon emissions unless the regulations underwent extensive changes. Trump said that he would "cancel" the Paris Agreement to address climate change that was adopted by more than 190 countries last year and stop funding any international efforts to address global warming.http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/us http://time.com/4349309/donald-trump |
SUPPORT
OPPOSE
Photo Courtesy of New York State AFL-CIO
Photo Credit: Miller photography