Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump

President elect Joe Biden and current President Donald Trump have very opposing views on some of the most relevant topics in this country. This election has been one of the most polarizing elections in recent history. In this article we will discuss some of their opposing views on the pandemic, healthcare, economy, and racial injustice.

On the coronavirus, Biden has repeatedly said he will give priority to advice from public health experts and let them drive America’s response to the pandemic. Unlike Trump, Biden has encouraged the use of face masks to reduce the spread of infection, a position broadly backed by public health officials. During his speech in which he introduced Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate, he pledged that his administration would provide “a comprehensive plan to meet the challenge of COVID-19 and turn the corner on this pandemic.” He has already begun setting up his compressive plan by putting together a pandemic response team full of qualified individuals He hopes to achieve “masking; clear, science-based guidance; dramatically scaling up testing” and “giving states and local governments the resources they need to open schools and businesses safely.” Biden also mentioned that, “scientists and public health experts should decide on [the] safety and efficacy” of any vaccine. “The White House should not weigh in on these matters or push the FDA to provide emergency authorizations prematurely,” he said in a statement in late July. Elsewhere, Biden pledged emergency housing support for tenants threatened with eviction during the pandemic. More recently, he has urged Congress to provide economic relief and public health funding, and for Trump to coordinate with his incoming officials on a vaccine distribution plan, warning that “more people may die if we don’t coordinate.”

During the Democratic primaries, Biden diverged from many of his rivals by rejecting calls to move all Americans onto a single government health plan through “Medicare for all.” Biden, who as vice president was a strong supporter of President Obama’s push to enact the Affordable Care Act, instead argued that expanding the 2010 law and keeping a mix of government plans and employer-based insurance would be more practical, less costly and less disruptive. Even so, he has called for a public option. The public option would be offered to Americans who live in states that don't have access to different Medicaid benefits that they would qualify for in other states. Even through he did not mention this in his proposal, Biden has said that undocumented immigrants will be able to buy into the public option plan and receive an option that is currently not allowed under the Affordable Care Act. Biden favors increasing subsidies to help Americans purchase plans on insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Like most Democrats, Biden is a strong supporter of abortion rights. Unlike the president elect, the current president, Donald Trump, is strongly against Obamacare and went so far as to promise to get rid of Obamacare immediately during one of his campaign rallies in 2016 (unsuccessful so far). He also promised to replace it with a new plan which has not been publicly proposed after being president for almost 4 years. It is highly unlikely that President Trump will be able to accomplish much in the next couple months to deliver on his promises.

One of the major differences with Biden and Trump is their tax plans. Biden wants to increase taxes on the top 1% of this country, meaning people who make over $400,000 a year and an increase on top corporate income tax. According to the Tax Policy Center, Biden’s tax plans will increase revenue by $4 trillion between 2021 and 2030. As for President Trump, if he were to have been re-elected then “taxes will gradually rise during Mr. Trump's second term. That's because portions of the 2017 tax cuts will begin to expire as early as 2022. Mr. Trump has talked about extending the cuts, but he would need congressional approval for that”. Trump did plan to decrease the tax revenue by another $300 billion. The result of this would cause the debt to increase by another $1.5 trillion in his second year.

Biden’s campaign laid out plans to close the wealth gap between Black and white Americans and combat inequities in the criminal justice system, the economy, housing and other areas; although he wasn’t an outspoken champion of paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans. He’s said he wants to create a $30-billion Small Business Opportunity Fund to help kick-start public-private developments in communities of color. And Biden plans to invest in programs that increase home ownership among families of color — including creating a new tax credit of up to $15,000 to help lower- and middle-income families buy their first home — and fine-tune Trump’s “Opportunity Zone” program to make it more effective at spurring economic development in low-income areas.

In short, President elect Biden will implement a national mask mandate and listen to scientists and experts in the field in regards to the pandemic. He will improve the Affordable Care Act and protect a woman's right to choice while Trump has still not accomplished any of his plans regarding healthcare and hasn’t released his so called better plan to replace ObamaCare. Biden’s tax plans will affect a small percentage of individuals but will overall benefit the overall country while Trump’s plan appears to help the middle class in the short term but is not good enough to last. As for racial tensions, Biden has agreed to listen to Americans and decrease the racial wealth gap and invest in programs to help people of color while President Trump continues to deny the existence of systemic racism.