As Hillary Clinton declared victory after winning four of the six primaries last night, the Democratic ticket for President solidified. While Donald Trump has been in that position for a while now, his campaign has now entered rough political waters…again.
And so it will likely go until November…
Unfortunately, what’s lost as the media and political punditry focus on the horserace, who’s stuck their foot in it today and the inevitable mud-slinging that Trump has already promised to begin on Monday, are the important policy differences between candidates. There are plenty of them, especially on economic issues impacting average Americans.
Bernie Sanders’ campaign ensured that issues of income inequality, economic security and fairness, social justice and boosting Social Security remained top of the political agenda. He vowed to continue that effort:
“Our campaign from day one has understood some very basic points and that is first, we will not allow right-wing Republicans to control our government. And that is especially true with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate. The American people, in my view, will never support a candidate whose major theme is bigotry, who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims and women, and African-Americans.
But we understand that our mission is more than just defeating Trump; it is transforming our country. The vast — the vast majority of the American people know that it is not acceptable that the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much as wealth as the bottom 90 percent. We are going to change that. And when millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, we will not allow 57 percent of all new income to go to the top 1 percent…
We will not allow Donald Trump to become President of the United States.”
When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, the differences between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are stark. Clinton supports expanding benefits, while Trump promises he won’t cut Social Security. That position has given the GOP party establishment heartburn but Trump has repeatedly acknowledged the GOP can’t win by promising benefit cuts and so he’s not:
“As Republicans, if you think you are going to change very substantially for the worse Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in any substantial way, and at the same time you think you are going to win elections, it just really is not going to happen,” Mr. Trump said, adding that polls show that tea partyers are among those who don’t want their entitlements changed.” Donald Trump, 2013 CPAC speech, Washington Times
“You know the Republicans also have to get elected, you do know that. And if you watch Bernie, and if you watch Hillary, they don’t only want to not cut, they want to increase Social Security.” Donald Trump, Morning Joe, February 2016
And yet his policy staff says the Trump administration is open to “entitlement changes.”
“After the administration has been in place, then we will start to take a look at all of the programs, including entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. We’ll start taking a hard look at those to start seeing what we can do in a bipartisan way.”
“…I think that whoever [is] the next president is going to have a horrible time in dealing with this, because those entitlements will race to the front of all the economic issues we have in this country.” Sam Clovis, Trump campaign Chief Policy Advisor, May 2016
You can read more about the Trump campaign positions here, here and here.
Hillary Clinton has a long history of fighting the privatization of Social Security and Medicare, something Donald Trump supported in his first Presidential campaign. These days, that position alone is not enough but Clinton has also articulated a real plan to boost benefits, provide caregiving credits, lift the payroll tax cap and improve spousal benefits. She also opposes Trump’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act which means seniors in Medicare would lose billions in drug savings, well-care visits, lower premiums and improved care.
There will be many more months to draw clear comparisons between these candidates’ positions on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as the Presidential campaign moves to the conventions and their platform debates.
The National Committee’s SeniorVote 2016 will keep you updated and candidates’ accountable on their plans for programs which touch the lives of virtually every American family.You can sign up for email alerts to be sure the latest news comes straight to your mailbox.