Sunday, October 30, 2016
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
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GENERAL ELECTION 2016
ISSUES Continued from 9 to $2,000 per child.
Education
Education is a core issue not just for students and families, but for communities, the economy, and the nation as a global competitor. The country has some 50 million K-12 students. Teaching them, preparing them for college and careers, costs taxpayers more than $580 billion a year, or about $11,670 per pupil per year. A better education usually translates into higher earnings. Although high school graduations are up sharply and dropout rates down, the nation has a ways to go to match the educational outcomes else where. American schoolchildren trail their counterparts in Japan, Korea, Germany, France and more. For students seeking higher education, they face rising college costs and many are saddled with debt. Hillar y Clinton has proposed free tuition at in-state public colleges and universities for working families with incomes up to $125,000 — free for families, that is, not for taxpayers. Donald Trump has focused on school choice, recently proposing to spend $20 billion in his first year in office to expand programs that let low-income families send their children to the local public, private, charter or magnet school that they think is best.
Student debt
More Americans are getting buried by student debt — causing delays in home ownership, limiting how much people can save and leaving taxpayers at risk as many loans go unpaid. Student debt now totals around $1.26 trillion. This amounts to a stunning 350 percent increase since 2005, according to the New York Federal Reserve. More than 60 percent of the class of 2014 graduated with debt that averaged nearly $27,000, according to the College Board. Not all that taxpayer-backed debt is getting repaid. Out of the 43 million Americans with student debt, roughly 16 percent are in long-term default — a potential hit in excess of $100 billion that taxpayers would absorb. Democrat Hillary Clinton proposes no tuition for students from families making less than $85,000 who go to an in-state, public college. Republican Donald Trump promises to cap payments at 12.5 percent of a borrower’s income, with loan forgiveness if they make payments for 15 years.
Climate change
It’s as if Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton live on two entirely different Earths: one warming, one not. Clinton says climate change threatens us all, while Trump repeatedly tweets that global warming is a hoax. Me a s u r e m e n t s a n d scientists say Clinton’s Earth is much closer to the warming reality. And it is worsening. The world is on pace for the hottest year on record, breaking marks set in 2015, 2014, and 2010. It is about 1.8 degrees warmer than a century ago. But it’s more than temperatures. Scientists have connected man-made climate change to deadly heat waves, droughts and flood-inducing downpours. ISSUES » 15
Things to know about the candidates Donald Trump By Jill Colvin ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — After vanquishing more than a dozen Republican rivals with a shock-andawe primary campaign, Donald Trump is about to learn whether that same strategy can deliver him the White House. The most unconventional major party nominee in decades, Trump has emerged as a movement candidate with a knack for packing places with devoted followers who feel the system’s been rigged against them. At the same time, he’s alienated minorities, women and many members of his own party, leaving his path to victory increasingly slim. A look at some things to know about him.
The brief
A year and a half ago, the reality television star and billionaire real estate developer was largely dismissed as an attention-seeking showman who had little intention of actually entering the race. But since announcing his candidacy, Trump has upended the presidential contest, seizing his party’s nomination despite breaking every rule. Trump’s campaign can be charted in inflammatory statements, each seemingly more outrageous than the last. After kicking off his campaign by saying the Mexican government sends criminals across the U.S. border illegally, he’s questioned Arizona Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero. He’s called for temporarily banning foreign Muslims from entering the country (then backed away from the plan), gone after the family of a slain soldier that criticized him, got into an extended verbal tiff with a former Latina
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Oct. 15 in Bangor, Maine. AP PHOTO/EVAN VUCCI beauty queen and belittled the appearances of some of the women who have accused him of sexual assault in the campaign’s final weeks.
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The son of a New York real estate developer, Trump grew up in an upper-income section of Queens and quickly joined his father’s business after graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Lured by the tall buildings and bright lights, Trump moved across the East River and set his sights on Manhattan. In the following decades, Trump’s reputation grew, not only for his assets but for his madefor-New-York-tabloid exploits. He became a national household name with the success of the hit television show, “The Apprentice,” and earned credentials in some conservative circles as he questioned the fact that President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
Signature issue
The campaign promise best associated with Trump is his plan to
build a wall along the length of the border with Mexico to stop the flow of migrants. And, Trump says, he’ll make the Mexican government pay for it. Trump has also vowed to restrict legal immigration dramatically as well as deport millions of people living in the country illegally who have committed crimes beyond their immigration offenses. And he says he’ll renegotiate the country’s trade deals and threatens to slap a 35 percent tariff on goods produced by manufacturers that move jobs overseas.
Debate digest
After the first presidential debate, Trump patted himself on the back for not bringing up former President Bill Clinton’s indiscretions. He’d said on stage: “You want to know the truth? I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself, ‘I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. It’s inappropriate. It’s not nice.’” By the second debate, with his campaign in deeper trouble, Trump and his aides abandoned such veiled niceties and invoked the
nuclear option, inviting three women who had accused rival Hillary Clinton’s husband of sexual harassment or assault decades ago. An hour before the debate, Trump held a jaw-dropping appearance with the accusers, an unprecedented abandonment of political decorum to make a personal attack.
Moment to remember Where to start? He acted out a near-homicide scene from a primary rival’s autobiography. He convened that press conference with women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct against them. He’s unleashed Twitter bombshells galore in the wee hours. But perhaps the most symbolic moments were the enormous rallies Trump held in the summer of 2015, including one in Mobile, Alabama, that drew tens of thousands. At that point it was clear Trump had tapped into a deep and festering anger that had been largely overlooked.
Please forget That time he joked
about dating his daughter, if only the two weren’t related. A series of derogatory comments aimed at women. Dozens of potentially offensive tweets, including several re-tweets of accounts linked to white supremacists. His caught-on-camera boasts from 2005 about being able to grope any woman he wanted without permission because he’s famous, and his subsequent attempts to discredit a number of women who have accused him of sexual assault. Trump’s refusal to play by the rules has earned him legions of loyal supporters. But his comments have also fed fuel to critics who say he does not have the temperament or judgment to be president.
Online and social media • Web site: http:// www.donaldjtrump.com • Tw i tt e r : h tt p : / / twitter.com/realDonald Trump • Instagram: http:// www.instagram.com/ realdonaldtrump • Facebook: https:// w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / DonaldTrump
Jill Stein By Kathleen Ronayne ASSOCIATED PRESS
RICHMOND, VA. — Green Party candidate Jill Stein sees an opening to woo disaffected Democrats, environmentalists and young radicals inspired to political action by the candidacy of Democrat Bernie Sanders. Things to know about Stein, a longtime activist who has never won statewide or national political office:
The brief
This isn’t Stein’s first foray into presidential politics. She ran on the Green Party line in 2012, failing to crack 500,000 votes or generate any significant spotlight. She thinks this time could be different, thanks to Sanders. Stein wasted no time swooping in on his political revolution, campaigning in Philadelphia during the Democratic National Convention and rallying throngs of angry Sanders’ supporters outside of the convention hall when the Vermont senator conceded the nod to Hillary Clinton. Stein’s running on a platform of erasing all existing student debt, mobilizing what she calls a wartime effort to switch the United States to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 and disengaging from foreign wars that she says the United States has no business being in. She’s offering a dark view of the future, saying both Republicans and Democrats are leading the country into imminent disaster. She’s admitted that winning
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein answers questions from members of the media during a campaign stop Oct. 6 at Humanist Hall in Oakland, California. AP PHOTO/D. ROSS CAMERON the presidency isn’t quite the ultimate goal. Instead, Stein’s hoping to capitalize on fresh interest in third party candidates to build momentum for the Green Party, which has had success in some local elections but has largely failed to make a dent in state or national politics. Stronger than normal turnout for Stein could help keep the Green Party on state ballots and provide additional public funding for future elections if Stein cracks 5 percent, a tall task at this point. Stein dismisses Democratic critics’ comments that she’s a spoiler who could help hand the election to Republican Donald Trump. She says she won’t be able to sleep at night if either Clinton or Trump is elected.
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Stein, 66, graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1979, going on to work in internal medicine with a focus on young adults. As a mother and doctor living in Lexington, Massachusetts, she turned to environmental activism in the 1990s. She joined efforts to regulate coal plants in Massachusetts and reduce mercury in the food and water supply. Using her medical background, Stein testified before several legislative committees on the harmful effects of mercury and other pollutants in child brain development. In 2 0 0 2 , t h e s t a t e’s Green-Rainbow Party recruited her to run for governor.
A political newcomer, Stein thought achieving electoral success could help advance her activist causes. She lost the race, and went on to lose every race after, including bids for the state legislature in 2004, secretary of state in 2006, governor again in 2010 and president in 2012.
Moment to remember
Cries of “Jill Not Hill” dotted the streets outside the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia last July. Stein hit a peak of sorts that week, when angry supporters of Sanders stormed out of the STEIN » 16