Trump Takes the Election, Here’s What to Expect
by Kai EL´Zabar, Chicago Defender NNPA Member
We got Trumped. America has a new President-elect, Donald Trump. The Chicago Defender endorsed democratic presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton because after careful examination, we believed that she was the best person for the job. However, the American people have spoken, and unlike our newly elected president, we accept the voice of the people immediately.
What a president does is made up of a complexity of serious responsibilities, and requires that you juggle all the balls in the air yet keep each in focus with the realization that each individually is important and of significant value and impact upon the whole. It takes a wise and seasoned sage to comprehend that they are all connected in such a way that none of them can be ignored without having some effect upon the rest.
Take President Obama, for instance. When faced with the worst recession in 80 years at the time caused by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a sprawling global bank, in September 2008 almost brought down the world’s financial system. He made the right choice given that he had the insight to see that it wasn’t about closing the auto companies, but rather about the people who worked for them, the communities in which they live and how it would impact them all. If all those workers were out of work, they would not be able to meet their house payments, or pay other financial responsibilities, continue to shop and support their community retailers, or banks. Eventually, the community would go belly-up. It would become a ghost town like Gary, Indiana; Youngstown, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and countless others experienced once the main industry of the city is shut down.
Of course, our president-elect was all for that. And where would we be now? The concern is that as president most decisions that he makes are not do-overs. Filing bankruptcy as an out to escape your shortcomings and shorting the folks you owe is not an escape hatch here. No, the president has to foresee the future based on the choices that he makes.
We are not excited with glee that Donald Trump is president-elect; however, we will put forth our best to work to make America bearable. As a paper born out of the throes of racism, segregation, and inequality, we see our mission as more important than ever before.
IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE
- President Elect Donald Trump has voiced his intentions to shut down the Affordable Care also known as Obama Care immediately. Yet he has said little about the system he envisions putting in its place. Non-partisan analysts project that as many as 25 million people could lose health insurance if the law is repealed
- He has promised to build a wall on the Mexican border.
- He has voiced his support of Stop and Frisk as well as profiling
- He has stated that a doctor who performs an abortion as well as the woman who receives an abortion must be punished
- He has said that all immigrants in the country illegally must be deported — an estimated 9 million people. In a speech on immigration in September, he suggested that his first priority would be deporting undocumented immigrants who arrested for other crimes. He has spoken favorably of President Obama’s deportation policies. The administration has removed at least2.4 million immigrants since Obama took office.
- Trump has also called for barring any Muslim who is not a U.S. citizen from entering the United States. Additionally, he called for a “vetting procedure” for potential immigrants to ensure that they share American values in his speech in September.
- Clinton and Trump also take opposite approaches to taxes. Trump would substantially reduce taxes, mostly for wealthy Americans.
- Clinton, by contrast, would modestly increase taxes on corporations and the rich.
- Trump would reduce marginal rates on ordinary income — a change that would primarily benefit affluent families, who would pay a maximum marginal rate of just 33 percent, compared to 39.6 percent in the current system. Trump would also eliminate the estate tax, which is currently paid by when the wealthiest families, and instead tax any gains on investments when the investor dies. (According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, 51 percent of the savings from Trump’s tax relief would eventually go to the richest 1 percent of
- American households. His plan would reduce taxes for the typical household in this group by $317,000 a year.)
- Trump has argued that his proposals would be a major stimulus for the U.S. economy. The center, however, warns that if Trump simply funded the government’s operations by borrowing more money instead of through collecting taxes, the increase in the national debt could have negative economic consequences in the long term.
- Trump is the first Republican presidential candidate to put forward proposals on child care. His plans would primarily benefit more affluent families rather than those with less income.
- He would allow families to save for child care in special accounts that would be sheltered from taxes. He would also allow biological mothers to apply for unemployment insurance in order to receive up to six weeks of maternity leave.
- Trump plans to allow families to deduct their child-care expenses from their taxes. This proposal would benefit families that itemize their deductions, who tend to be richer, federal data show.
- At the same time, Trump would also eliminate personal exemptions — a provision of the tax code that allows households to pay less based on the number of people in the family — and the head-of-household status, which gives single parents a break on their taxes. The result is that families with multiple children or single parents would not benefit as much from Trump’s other proposals, and some would even wind up paying more.
On the other hand Trump promised that he would start by ending Obama Care and reversing a bundle of executive orders issued by President Obama, including ones that have shielded some unauthorized immigrants from deportation. He would push a variety of measures through Congress, including his plan to cut taxes and also his plan to spur up to $1 trillion in infrastructure spending.
Perhaps most aggressively, he would change the United States’ long-standing stance toward international trade, formally signaling his desire to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, labeling China a currency manipulator and preparing to levy tariffs on China, Mexico and other American trading partners.
Of course there’s more and it doesn’t look great for the average American.
However, now he has to prepare and be ready to share his vision for America rather than the great sounding sound bites that people took and ran with absence of substance and certainly not good for the average working person and definitely not those who are under-served.
Questions like, How exactly is he going to increase jobs, bring back jobs to America, rebuild the American steel industry? Is there such a thing as clean coal?, need to be addressed.
