Elections 2016: Trump vs. Sanders - Case Study Example

Elections 2016-Trump vs. Sanders

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are potential presidential candidates in the forthcoming November 2016 general elections in the United States. Trump seeks the elections via a Republican candidature while Sanders wishes to be elected as a Democrat. Both candidates have laid out their strategies on what reforms they wish to implement in education, environmental sectors and economic development of the country once they are elected. This paper presents a critical overview of the reforms suggested by both candidates. The paper concludes with the selection of Bernie Sanders as the president of choice, considering his stance on educational reforms, his protection for the environment and ambitious plan to improve the economic situation in the U.S.

Donald Trump's beliefs and policies regarding educational reforms when he gets into the presidency are not very clear. However, some aspects of the existing educational system are observable from his campaign strategies as well as from some of the speeches he publicly makes while soliciting for support from the American citizens. One area that comes out quite clearly is Trump's stance on the Common Core Standards. Trump made criticisms of some his Republican opponents regarding the stances on the common core standards agenda, characterizing the common core standards as a federal overreach as stated by Quinlan. Apparently, Trump is totally against the idea of children education being directly governed by the federal government from Washington D.C.

Moreover, Trump made public his stance on the stringent regulations against for-profit colleges, especially when he started his for-profit online college in 2005. The college was not accredited as a university, leading to the college's cancellation of its title as a university. According to Trump, failure of many for-profit colleges to thrive in the U.S. can be attributed to increased federal scrutiny following which many students are left out of the education system when such colleges are delisted for non-compliance (Quinlan).

Quinlan notes Trump’s effort of “cutting the U.S. Department of Education way, way down,” a political stance affiliated to the republicans in recent years. The difference in stance between Trump and other republican presidential candidates is that while the rest consider completely restructuring the Department of Education, Trump considers minimizing its expenditures. Unfortunately, Trump fails to provide a proper strategy on how the costs of operation or funding to the department would be cut (Ujifusa).

Also, it is evident that from the book, The America we Deserve, quoted by Quinlan that Trump is against the idea of parents and children making their school choices citing a dumping down situation (Quinlan). In his opinion, Trump believes that if teachers' unions are given an opportunity to tamper with the status quo, public schools may lose educational consumers; hence, opposing the idea of teachers unions comparing them to monopolies. However, Trump showed great support for the use of vouchers and the existence of charter schools run using the taxpayers' funds (Ujifusa).

However, there are several criticisms made regarding Trump’s stance on educational reforms once given an opportunity to head to Whitehouse. In actual sense, most of the critics base their arguments on Trump's inability to present a clear strategy for implementing the few proposed reforms on education. Moreover, the Education Week suggests that the republican presidential candidate does not concentrate so much on an important issue like education as he does on illegal immigration and international trade. Interviewed persons also claim that Trump may not have the necessary competence to choose the right secretary for education, projecting that he may end up selecting one of his friends and big business people to hold to post. Such an approach to leadership in the U.S. would fail the citizens’ hopes of enjoying a quality and affordable education.

The second hotly discussed topic in the journey towards the 2016 general elections in the issue of environmental protection and how the various presidential candidates look at the issue. Dave Keating presents Donald Trump as the man who is against the entire idea of environmental protection, creating a threat to the global efforts of attaining a suitable climate change. According to Keating, great environmental supporters such John Kasich also had the guts to consider manmade climate change to be some sought of a theory that may not be scientifically proven. Other Republican candidates such as Marco Rubio branded the environmental protection agency as an employment prevention agency, insinuating some sought of an overall rejection of the environmental protection ideologies by the Republicans.

Overall, Dave Keating looks at Trump as non-supporter of the climate change programs, especially after ignoring the historic agreement signed by President Obama in Paris with an aim of minimizing emissions. According to Donald Trump, the greatest emission producers are some of the biggest employers, and it would be wrong to block employment from such industries, denying the Americans an opportunity to be employed. Apparently, Donald and almost all other republican candidates are on the move to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, a move that will leave the world at the risk of suffering from the effects of global warming according to Keating.

The move to reopen excessive coal-consumption industries without a regulation of the amount of emission released by the U.S. will trigger a similar reaction in China. China is one of the biggest global emission producers, and the move to ignore the historic agreement will be a catastrophe per se. A move to restrict government regulations on environmental protection will trigger a competition by the states to have the least environmental protection regulations to attract business investors, finally increasing pollution to uncontrollable negative extremes.

The third policy that Trump uses to solicit support from Americans is jobs and the economy as a whole. Larry Kudlow supports Trump’s economic policies as those that stand a chance of pushing the entire U.S. citizens into voting him as the next U.S. president come November. Kudlow presents Trump as an experienced business person having been in the real estate’s development; hence, being aware of what economic policies to apply to make America great again. In fact, the philosophy of restoring America’s prosperity after the Second World War steered Trump’s rising popularity among the voters. What the voters want currently is a president that is strong enough to create an economically stable America, and Kudlow believes that Donald Trump is that man. Trump also understands the need to eliminate illegal immigrants while taking advantage of the legal business people passing through their borders to contribute to their economy. Such an approach to illegal immigration is what the voters need as opposed to deportation. Trump's supporters, including Larry Kudlow, believe that Trump has the potential to deliver such economically acceptable policies into practice.

Trump's critics, however, appreciate his ability to make America great again, yet they complain of his failure to lay out strategies on how he would achieve the policy. Heather Long, however, explains a few ways through which Trump aims at restoring America’s greatness. One of the strategies is through keeping the wage minimum without increasing it. Trump suggests that maintaining the minimum wage at $7.25 per hour is desirable as opposed to, increasing the wages at the risk of losing a huge number of jobs. Trump also suggests a one-time tax cut for the wealthy amounting to about 14.25% for those earning more than $10 million, an approach that helps in paying off debts. According to Heather Long, Trump aims at employing the "Wall Street pros to run the economy," implying that most of the treasury officials in the Trump's government will be the rich businesses, people. Trump also plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act terming it as a disaster, yet it is an idea gaining popularity especially considering the impact it has had on the poor.

Information obtained from Feelthebern.org website supports Bernie Sanders’ desire to become the next president of the U.S. through educational reforms. According to the website, there is a notably increasing expenditure on education, especially at the college and the university level. Parents save most of their incomes for the sake of their children who qualify to obtain higher education from American based colleges and universities. Such money, according to Sanders should be put into circulation to help improve the country’s GDP. Moreover, the federal government offers student aid through loans that are charged high-interest rates, rendering the students heavily indebted following graduation from the colleges. Much of the income earned after employment goes back to the government while paying back the student loans and interest. Worse of all, some students qualify to attend colleges and universities for higher education but do not get the opportunity to enjoy such rights citing high poverty levels in some areas. Such are the challenges that lead Sanders to propose a policy of administering free college and university education. He believes that it is the right of every student to receive education as a right if they are willing and able, and the College for All Act will steer the educational reforms.

Sanders also proposes a high quality and affordable early childhood education program that takes care of the student needs as early as possible. Once given an opportunity to enter Whitehouse as a president, Sanders hopes to propose an increase in the hiring of faculty and educators in the colleges and universities while increasing their percentage of tenured and tenure-track professors according to information provided on the feelthebern.org website. Sanders also maintains a stance that students do not need to reapply for the financial assistance on an annual basis. Moreover, he proposed an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act due to its inability equip the child with essential skills such as critical thinking and team work. Such skills, according to the website’s representation of Sanders’ views are the key skills in the current job market. Again, the NCLB Act emphasized more on the standardized tests, minimizing the teaching curricula and making it concentrate on a narrow range of coverage. As such, the Act is undesirable for the growing America’s need for a market-suitable education system.

Sanders’ is quite particular on a strategy to expand the college and university work study programs to include every interested student into the program. It is a program that provides finances for students to enable them to maintain their upkeep in the university while substantiating their tuition fees. Finally, Sanders' hopes to create a platform for aliens under the age of sixteen years to acquire American citizenship under the DREAM Act. Such a move will give such children an opportunity to acquire quality and affordable education in the U.S. as well as give them an opportunity to contribute positively to the economy.

While the policies proposed by Sanders’ sound pretty good, critics claim that the policies will not work in a real world according to Kevin James. In fact, Kevin James suggests that the proposals would cause more trouble than bring any solutions to the education sector. One of the biggest issues is funding for the free education, an idea that looks unrealistic as presented by Sanders. Moreover, it is unclear whether a free college and university education system improves performance. Some critics argue that funding the colleges and universities would reduce their competitiveness; hence, a positive impact may not be achieved through the policy change. Not much innovativeness can be acquired through free college and university education as suggested by James.

On issues pertaining the environment, Sanders is one of the presidential candidates that have shown consistency in the support of environmental protection initiatives (Adler). In his fight for environmental protection, Sanders has been associated with the authoring and introduction of environmental bills such as the Climate Protection Act of 2013, the Residential Energy Savings Act of 2013, and the End Polluter Welfare Act and also authored a bill to supply the entire country with solar panels for green energy. Despite the failure of these bills to become law since Sanders was apparently waging war against the anti-environmentalist republicans, Sanders has maintained his stance on the environmental protection actions. He, however, succeeded in steering the Green Jobs Act in 2007 with Hillary Clinton, showing the fruits of some of his efforts in the fight for environmental protection (Adler).

There are critics of the Sanders' stance on environmental protection that present arguments against the abolishment of the nuclear power plants as suggested by the presidential candidate. The critics argue that more than 67% of the U.S. electric power comes from such nuclear plants, despite the fact that they are a potential source of environmental hazards (Adler). It should, however, be understood that Sanders' approach to abolishing the nuclear plant is systematic in that the renewal of licensure will be done sequentially (Adler). In this case, it will be easy to transition from such environmentally hazardous sources of power to green energy consumption.

Tami Luhby presents Sanders as an ambitious presidential hopeful with great economic advances if given a chance to become the president of the U.S. As the president; Sanders proposes a median income soaring by more than $22,000. Furthermore, the Democrat presidential candidate plans to create more than 26 million jobs, reducing the rate of unemployment to about 3.8%. In fact, Sanders proposes to enrich the economy with about $14.5 trillion that will cater for infrastructure expenditure, youth employment, increasing the social security benefits and sponsoring free college education in addition to other prospective policy approaches. Sanders also plans to increase the minimum wages as well as shift income from the rich towards the middle-class earners. This approach will be accomplished through heavy taxation on the wealth and corporations if Sanders becomes the president. Friedman in his analysis of Sanders’ development data projected an economic growth of about 5.3% in the ten year period that Sanders would be president, with a project GDP growth of about 4% (Krugman).

The figures presented by Friedman on behalf of Sanders have been heavily criticized for being too optimistic. Paul Krugman presents the views of various critics who feel that Sanders is overambitious by imagining that he would achieve such implausible economic development within a period of ten years. The argument behind this criticism is derived from history in that little has been accomplished since 2000 (Krugman). Moreover, it has been projected that by 2026 the number of people older than 65 years will be more than a quarter of the entire population. Hopefully, these figures will turn out to be achievable for Bernie Sanders in his presidential regime, if it comes.