By Aimee Brandoon, Peyton Capellen and Dylan Kalkoske Posted December 20, 2016
The numbers have been in for a while now and on January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump will become the President of the United States. Throughout the election and his campaign, Trump made many promises to many people. The big question everyone is asking is, will he follow through?
Campaign promises cover many areas but the focus here is immigration, the economy, the Second Amendment, foreign affairs, health care, education, and the environment. There are a few important groups in Washington when it comes to Trump’s ability to do the things he promises. That is Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and his cabinet.
One phrase that will be used frequently is executive order. An executive order does not have to be approved by Congress, it simply has to be Constitutional. Obama issued 260 executive orders. Trump plans to invalidate all of these that are considered unconstitutional in his first 100 days.
Yet another highly important piece to this puzzle is the Supreme Court. Starting his term Trump is going to be able to nominate a new justice for the Supreme Court.
Professor Danny Gonzalez, a political science professor at Great Basin College, explained the importance of the vacant seat on the court.
“Absolutely unequivocally yes. His selection to replace the former justice of the US Supreme Court Scalia and the possibility of appointing one or two members to the US Supreme Court is going to have a consequential impact. It is going to be very significant. And right now, not only do you have a divided country, but you also have a divided court. And so if you look at the political spectrum and everything you have half the judges that are conservative and the other half that are considered liberal. So you have a lot of split decisions,” said Gonzales.
America does have its safeguards though and his pick has to be approved by the US Senate. Another way the beam is tipped in Trump’s favor is that both Congress and the Senate are majority Republican.
In addition to a generally supportive Congress, Trump is now selecting his cabinet nominees.
“Right now it seems like any time you turn on Fox News or CNN it seems like you have all the cameras turned at Trump Tower because right now they’re vetting individuals that could possibly be running these different departments, in other words, the president’s cabinet. There are actually 15 executive departments. So you can kind of think of these cabinet picks, these selections, the ones that are being vetted, first they are going to have similar political views that align with Donald Trump. And they’re also, I guess you could consider them lobbyists or I guess they are advocates for the different political and public policy positions that he holds and that he talked about in the campaign,” said Gonzales.
—IMMIGRATION—
During the election process, immigration was one of the most talked about issues, a lot of this was because of how Donald Trump addressed the issue and his plan for dealing with the issue. When reflecting on immigration Donald Trump’s main focus is protecting the jobs and security of the American people. To make this happen Trump has proposed a new immigration control plan to ensure Americans are offered jobs first.
One way Trump has proposed to do this is by building an impenetrable wall on the southern border of Mexico. Thinking that the building of this wall could actually become a reality is very questionable.
Danny Gonzales, a political science professor at Great Basin College weighed in on the possibility of the wall being built and the steps it would take to do so.
“Everything that we know about government or political process is that it’s about compromise. And not everybody agrees with Donald Trump about the wall, again probably half the country doesn’t agree with him about that and so you’re going to have to get legislative support going back to funding, whether a wall can even be built or not,” said Gonzales. “So you know again you would have the Department of Homeland Security going and lobbying Congress and trying to get the support funding to actually build the wall.”
Although the actual price to build the wall has not been released, it is estimated to be in the billions. Who is me? What this leads me to believe is that the wall is a far-fetched idea with a large possibility of not actually happening. His plan only allows immigrants who want to enter the U.S. to be selected based on their likelihood of success in the U.S.
The plan also includes a temporary suspension of regions that export terrorism. Anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained and then released back into their country. Trump will also put an end to sanctuary cities. A sanctuary city is one that has adopted a policy that protects undocumented immigrants by not prosecuting them for violating immigration laws. Trump claimed that on day one of his presidency he would begin to deport criminal aliens. This also means it must be ensured that countries will take back their citizens who are being deported. If this plan is to actually go through it would cost between an estimated 400 and 600 billion dollars and would take around 20 years. While doing this Trump would be eliminating an estimated 16% of the American workforce. Trump also said he will turn off the jobs and benefits magnet because many illegal immigrants come to the U.S. searching for jobs although federal law prohibits the employment of illegal immigrants.
Math teacher, Austin Mayo did not agree with Donald’s plans regarding immigration.
“You definitely have to have borders that are controlled and maintained and have some sort of say over who can and can’t enter the country but for America a country founded on immigration and to take an isolationist mentality that has been proven time and time again not to work. Especially in today’s day and age when we have a global economy trying to seal off 2,000 some miles with a wall and expect that to work is just insane,” said Mayo. “Then we want to act tough about these ‘illegal’ immigrants. Most of them are here for the same reason and that is that they are doing jobs the average American does not want to do because they want to better themselves and their families. It is really easy to focus on that one illegal immigrant that was a criminal while punishing millions that do nothing but work hard.”
—THE ECONOMY—
Based on Trump’s campaign website he is going to “create a dynamic booming economy that will create 25 million new jobs over the next decade.” This seems fairly likely because if he follows through on his promise to kick out illegal immigrants that would open up 10 million jobs once occupied by the immigrants. He has a few simple tasks he feels will help the economy: a new pro-growth tax plan, an American-First trade policy, a new energy plan, and the “penny plan”.
It is said the key issues concerning the labor force are the large numbers of people leaving it, more and more Americans in their “prime-earning years” are not in the labor force, and hourly and weekly earnings are lower than they were in 1973. Student loan debt exceeds $1.3 million. 1 in 6 American men between the ages of 18-34 are either in jail or out of work. These are just a few of the facts. It is hard to imagine how one man can create millions of jobs, Gonzales shares an example of what Trump could do to keep American jobs from going overseas.
“One example is providing incentives to keep companies here. There was just a recent example, the carrier company, he said was able to prevent X number of jobs from going to another country and being able to take advantage of cheaper labor, more economical labor. Again I think he would be able to provide and create those incentives to make businesses stay here,” said Gonzales.
The next really important piece to this is the tax plan. Here is the tax plan summed up.
“Reduce taxes across the board, especially for working and middle-income Americans who will receive a massive tax reduction. Ensure the rich will pay their fair share, but no one will pay so much that it destroys jobs or undermines our ability to compete,” said Trump’s campaign website.
This idea of a tax reduction for the middle class hit home and may have been a motivation behind some of his voters.
“I think that’s where his appeal was, giving the advantage to middle-class America. So I think he just wants to make sure the tax plan is equitable and that the middle class will be able to benefit. I think that’s where his appeal was to the blue-collar workers, to the factory workers. I think that’s going to be a very big campaign promise that he’s going to prioritize and going to keep,” said Gonzales.
The new tax plan is a very big promise that everyone in America hopes he will keep. With Trump’s business background, it is greatly expected Trump will help America’s economy tremendously, but only the next four years can tell.
—HEALTH CARE—
Trump wants to immediately, “Repeal and replace ObamaCare with Health Savings Accounts.” Trump is then going to work with Congress to create a patient-centered healthcare system that promotes choice, quality, and affordability. He wants to make sure people who have not had coverage before get it now. He wants to give local leaders the opportunity to design Medicaid programs that will better serve low-income people.
Gonzales also thinks Trump will be overturning Obamacare but there will be different ways of the government overturning it.
“I think you are going to see an executive order overturning ObamaCare but I think you’re also going to have some provisions in terms of how they’re going to implement it being overturned,” said Gonzales, “I think you are going to see an executive order overturning ObamaCare, but I think you’re also going to have some provisions in terms of how they’re going to implement it being overturned.”
When January comes around Trump’s plan is to set up a repeal to only get rid of certain parts like subsidies for the marketplaces, Medicaid expansion, and the individual mandate penalties. Trump’s plan to repeal will be easier said than done and when he does get it repealed he will have to figure out the replacement part.
Mayo also does not think Trump’s plan to add Health Savings Accounts and take away ObamaCare will fix things.
“A health saving account is essentially a savings account where you put money into an account that will only be used for health, so it is essentially the same thing as regular health insurance where you are paying a regular premium so that you have coverage when it matters. The issue he will run into with the health saving account, I think, will be you will have people that have saved up so much and I don’t think people understand how expensive it really is,” said Mayo.
—EDUCATION—
Donald Trump’s first plan of action with education will be to “Immediately add an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards school choice.” School choice is an alternative for students that gives them a choice to attend a different school than the public school they are assigned to depending on their location.
Although this sounds like a good idea, it is unclear how Trump will get the money to pay for this but Professor Danny Gonzales also had some input on Trump’s education plan and said the money will most likely be raised by increasing taxes.
“It’s really giving families and students the flexibility and freedom to determine where they’re going to go to school, not just based on where they live,” said Gonzales. “If you’re going to pay to encourage individuals to open up a charter school you’re going to have to prioritize the funding. If you’re going to have to add here you’re going to have to take away from somewhere else, or you know the bottom line is you increase taxes. And voters don’t like when their taxes are increased.”
Trump’s national goal is to provide school choice to 11 million children who live in poverty. The country spends an average of $12,296 on each student per year who is enrolled from elementary school to high school. This means the U.S. spends more per student than almost any other country in the world yet, students in the U.S. perform at the lower end of the list when compared with other advanced countries. In a statement about education Trump said: “Our students continue to lag behind their peers worldwide.”
With Trump’s school choice plan, he hopes to fix the problem of the U.S. falling at the bottom of the leaderboards and give each student a better chance to receive a higher education. Looking past high school Trump also offered a vague plan on universities and how he will lower the overwhelming costs of attending a college. Trump wants to work with Congress to ensure the universities are making a valid effort to reduce the costs and piling debt on students.
—ENVIRONMENT—
According to his campaign website, Trump’s big America first energy plan is to “make America energy independent, create millions of new jobs, and protect clean air and clean water. We will conserve our natural habitats, reserves, and resources. We will unleash an energy revolution that will bring vast new wealth to our country.” Those are some pretty big promises there, and how can he even get that done? The answer is with the help of his cabinet and lobbyists.
“It’s a combination of working with the specific executive department, for example, the Department of Interior and also working with congressional representatives. Another thing too is the influence of lobbyists. They do represent a lot of businesses and industries like mining for example. So you’d have those lobbyists exerting their influence in terms of possibly rewriting some of those regulations that would benefit their clients,” said Gonzales.
So let’s say Trump is able to get those regulations rewritten and opens up mining exploration in Nevada. That would mean more jobs in Nevada, but would it be worth possibly destroying habitats?
“That’s really where the politics come into being. There are certain interest groups, certain people who feel like it’s not worth opening up those areas, it’s not worth creating those jobs if you’re going to be damaging and destroying the habitat. That’s where I think the balance comes into play, is it worth creating jobs or do we need to maintain the numbers with sage grouse,” said Gonzales.
—SECOND AMENDMENT—
Presidential Elect, Donald Trump feels strongly about the Second Amendment. He also feels like we need to get serious about prosecuting violent criminals. Trump also wants to, “Expand and bring back programs like Project Exile and get gang members and drug dealers off the street,” to lower crime rates. In addition, Trump proposed he wants to fix our broken mental health system, saying most of the mass murders in the past several years have all had something in common, which was the mental health of the person committing the crime.
Professor Gonzales thinks the Supreme Court will have a big say in gun control laws. Gonzales also does not think Trump will focus on the 2nd Amendment issues as much as he said he would.
“I don’t think so, I think there’s going to be events where we have more shootings and it’s always going to be talked about in the media, people are going to be concerned, and I think he’ll definitely take a side, but just in terms of having an executive order, I would be surprised if he did,” said Gonzales.
—FOREIGN AFFAIRS—
Let’s be honest, the U.S. does not have the best relationship with the rest of the world. Many citizens feared the election of Trump because he would have the power to press “the button” that could start the next world war and, given his rather short temper, many people fear him having control of the most deadly weapon on the planet. Aside from all of that, Donald Trump’s plan is to improve foreign relations across the globe. Rebuilding our military, enhancing our intelligence, and improving our cyber capabilities are all parts of the plan that will help increase foreign relations. Along with this Trump wants to work with our Arab allies in the Middle East to continue the fight against ISIS. This will be done aggressively using joint military operations to destroy ISIS. Trump hopes to defeat the ideology of radical Islamic terrorism, although this will not be an easy thing to do.
