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"I don't like his policies, therefore they don't exist, and he doesn't have any!" Cannoli Send a noteboard - 24/01/2017 01:04:12 PM

When you go to Trump's website, right on the top is a link that says "positions". You select, for example, "Tax Plan" and get an 1100 word list of specific policies, and there is a link near the top to a fact sheet. On Clinton's website, it's "issues" which takes you a similar page. Selecting her tax policy brings you to a 480 word list of positions, which is much more general, has a larger font, and picture and video. Trump is the one with specifics and ideas, while Clinton used catch phrases and graphics. In Trump's 1,152 word tax plan, the word "Trump" appears 14 times. In Clinton's 480 words, "Hillary" appears 9 times.

Here's some sample portions:
The Trump Plan will lower the business tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, and eliminate the corporate alternative minimum tax. This rate is available to all businesses, both small and large, that want to retain the profits within the business.
-It will provide a deemed repatriation of corporate profits held offshore at a one-time tax rate of 10 percent.
-It eliminates most corporate tax expenditures except for the Research and Development credit.
-Firms engaged in manufacturing in the US may elect to expense capital investment and lose the deductibility of corporate interest expense. An election once made can only be revoked within the first 3 years of election; if revoked, returns for prior years would need to be amended to show revised status. After 3 years, election is irrevocable.
-The annual cap for the business tax credit for on-site childcare authorized by Sec. 205 of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 would be increased to $500,000 per year (up from $150,000) and recapture period would be reduced to 5 years (down from 10 years).
-Businesses that pay a portion of an employee’s childcare expenses can exclude those contributions from income. Employees who are recipients of direct employer subsidies would not be able to exclude those costs from the individual income tax and the costs of direct subsidies to employees could not be used as a cost eligible for the credit.

And:
As president, Hillary will:
-Restore basic fairness to our tax code. Hillary will implement a “fair share surcharge” on multi-millionaires and billionaires and fight for measures like the Buffett Rule to ensure the wealthiest Americans do not pay a lower tax rate than hardworking middle-class families. She’ll close loopholes that create a private tax system for the most fortunate, and she’ll ensure multi-million-dollar estates are paying their fair share of taxes. Read the fact sheet.
- Close corporate and Wall Street tax loopholes and invest in America. Hillary will close tax loopholes like inversions that reward companies for shifting profits and jobs overseas. She will charge an “exit tax” for companies leaving the U.S. to settle up on their untaxed foreign earnings. She will close tax loopholes that let Wall Street money managers pay lower rates than some middle-class families. And she’ll reward businesses that invest in good-paying jobs here in the United States. Read the fact sheet.
- Simplify and cut taxes for small businesses so they can hire and grow. The smallest businesses, with one to five employees, spend 150 hours and $1,100 per employee on federal tax compliance. That’s more than 20 times higher than the average for far larger firms. We’ve got to fix that.
- Provide tax relief to working families from the rising costs they face. For too many years, middle-class families have been squeezed by rising costs for everything from child care to health care to affording college. Hillary will offer relief from these rising costs, including tax relief for Americans facing excessive out-of-pocket health care costs and for those caring for an ill or elderly family member.
- Pay for ambitious investments in a fiscally responsible way. Hillary believes that we can afford to pay for ambitious, progressive investments in good-paying jobs, debt-free college, and other measures to strengthen growth, broaden opportunity, and reduce inequality. Hillary will use the proceeds from ensuring the wealthiest and the largest corporations pay their fair share to pay for these investments without adding to the debt."

Like the specifics or thrust of the polices, or hate them, Trump is definitely providing more details and is more focused on explaining the policy, rather than self-promoting.

On another issue (Clinton's issue page has a lot more narrow items, than Trumps, so finding pages that are roughly about the same things for comparisons is a little tricky), veterans affairs: Trump has 437 words (4 of them being "Trump" ), Clinton has 657 words (11 of them being "Hillary" ). {for the record, I omitted links to other stuff from the word count of each site} Clinton again, takes up a significant proportion of the page with a video.
Donald J. Trump's 10 Point Plan to Reform The Department of Veterans Affairs
1. Appoint a VA Secretary whose sole purpose will be to serve veterans. Under a Trump Administration, the needs of D.C. bureaucrats will no longer be placed above those of our veterans.
2. Use the powers of the presidency to remove and discipline the federal employees and managers who have violated the public's trust and failed to carry out the duties on behalf of our veterans.
3. Ask that Congress pass legislation that empowers the Secretary of the VA to discipline or terminate any employee who has jeopardized the health, safety or well-being of a veteran.
4. Create a commission to investigate all the fraud, cover-ups, and wrong-doing that has taken place in the VA, and present these findings to Congress to spur legislative reform.
5. Protect and promote honest employees at the VA who highlight wrongdoing, and guarantee their jobs will be protected.
6. Create a private White House hotline, which will be active 24 hours a day answered by a real person. It will be devoted to answering veteran's complaints of wrongdoing at the VA and ensure no complaints fall through the cracks.
7. Stop giving bonuses to any VA employees who are wasting money, and start rewarding employees who seek to improve the VA's service, cut waste, and save lives.
8. Reform the visa system to ensure veterans are at the front of the line for health services, not the back.
9. Increase the number of mental health care professionals, and allow veteran's to be able to seek mental health care outside of the VA.
10. Ensure every veteran has the choice to seek care at the VA or at a private service provider of their own choice. Under a Trump Administration, no veteran will die waiting for service.

And:
To support our veterans and ensure they have the opportunities and tools they need to succeed upon returning home, Hillary will:
• Fundamentally reform veterans’ health care to ensure access to timely and high quality care and block efforts to privatize the VA—including improving health care for women at the VHA, ending the veteran suicide epidemic, and continuing efforts to identify and treat invisible, latent, and toxic wounds of war that affect veterans, family members, and caregivers after their service.
• Build a 21st-century Department of Veterans Affairs to deliver world-class care. Hillary was outraged by the recent scandals at the VA, and as president, she will demand accountability and performance from VA leadership. Many veterans have to wait an unacceptably long time to see a doctor or to process disability claims and appeals. Hillary will make the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) a seamless partner in health care. She does not believe that privatization will solve the problems that the VHA is facing—this department must deliver high-quality care while acting as an integrated payer-purchaser and facilitating a full range of services for all veterans, regardless of where they live.
• Empower veterans and strengthen our economy and communities by connecting their unique skills to the jobs of the future. Hillary will make the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill a lasting part of our social contract with those who serve, expand tax credits for veterans’ employment, improve certification and credentialing programs, strengthen veteran entrepreneurship programs, and create pathways for servicemembers to enter growing career fields. She will also protect veterans from discrimination and predatory companies and work to end veteran homelessness.
• Overhaul VA governance to create a new veteran-centric model of excellence by creating a culture of accountability, service, and excellence at the VA; providing budgetary certainty; and ensuring our veterans are buried with the honor, distinction, and integrity they deserve.
Our military families serve alongside our men and women in uniform. To strengthen services and support for military families, Hillary will:
• Realign the demands of a military career to accommodate 21st-century family realities while maintaining a strong force by enabling more flexibility in military careers and giving servicemembers and their families a greater say in their lives. That includes increasing access to child care both on and off the base, maintaining a commitment to to extended leave policies, and more.
• Back military spouses as they pursue education, seek jobs, build careers and secure their finances by expanding spousal employment support and training initiatives while in service and during transition.
• Ensure military children receive a high-quality education and the resources to succeed by improving military schools, enhancing the experience of military children in public schools, and ensuring key benefits are available for all military families.
And to keep our military strong and resilient, Hillary will:
• Sustain and strengthen the all-volunteer force, including the reserve and National Guard. Hillary will support smart compensation and benefits reform; adopt inclusive personnel policies, including aggressively combating military sexual assault and harassment; welcome women to compete for all military positions; and allow transgender Americans to serve openly in the military.

I picked this one, because there is not a lot of substantive difference between them on this issue. But Trump's presentation of his position is more informative and policy-specific, while Clinton's is more laden with buzz-words and self-promotional.

This is one of the things that are so detestable about the current state of the media and public discussion. There is much fussing and fuming about the format of the news media, and complaints about the delivery, especially on television. But the only purpose news media should serve for an intelligent and self-determined person is to alert them to current events and issues. Anyone worth talking to looks these things up for himself and makes up his own mind, so the style and format of the news doesn't matter so much. Fake news is not nearly the problem liberals who miss their news media monopoly like to pretend, because for anyone with an ounce of curiousity, the truth is out there as well. Lazy and stupid people can simply accept the media narrative, and ideologically lazy or self-satisfied people can accept the media narrative which best suits their preconceptions.

People who don't like Trump can accept the media narrative selected early in his campaign, that he was not a serious candidate (because his signature issue of immigration is one the media simply refuses to discuss, except to denounce any inquiries into the subject as racism and nativism, so they prefered to dismiss rather than dissect they guy who quickly set himself apart from the pack by planting his flag on that hill), and simply keep repeating that to themselves and their fellow opponents of Trump, because there is plenty of material in the echo chamber that they feel no need to look him up and see what he has to say for themselves. Or at best, they will look over a comparison chart of the candidates, prepared by a partisan publication or web site, in the guise of a nuetral or objective list of facts.

I disagree with many of Trump's positions, which is why I voted otherwise in the general election, and did not vote for any of the candidates in the primary (though I did vote for the delegate slate of Cruz, because I preferred the people on it to those on Kasich's or Trump's slate). But I am not so devoid of self-respect or basic honesty as to try to claim he does not have any. I would also like to think I am not so stupid as to try to claim a negative, without certain knowledge that no existant item could disprove my claim.

Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
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Trump's Policies, or What that crazy mo'fo' gon' do next?!? - 19/01/2017 11:14:31 PM 874 Views
Interesting, but I dunno. Haven't heard from him anything I didn't like - 19/01/2017 11:38:18 PM 454 Views
Hmm, what I am fearful of? Not much..... - 20/01/2017 02:50:00 AM 469 Views
Republicans warned for 70 years a Soviet fifth column was destroying the US: Turns out they were it - 20/01/2017 02:23:06 PM 494 Views
I've missed you, Literate Moondog - 24/01/2017 12:04:17 PM 461 Views
Et tu quoque, Cannoli? - 27/02/2017 09:31:59 PM 405 Views
Implement policies? That's just crazy talk. - 20/01/2017 07:28:52 PM 416 Views
"I don't like his policies, therefore they don't exist, and he doesn't have any!" - 24/01/2017 01:04:12 PM 602 Views
Sessions concerns me greatly. - 20/01/2017 08:06:35 PM 445 Views
What scares is is I really have no idea what he will do. *NM* - 20/01/2017 09:17:43 PM 279 Views
But isn't that fun and exciting! *NM* - 21/01/2017 01:54:31 AM 310 Views
that is funa n exciting in Star War movie, not so much with the leader of the free world - 23/01/2017 01:18:06 PM 473 Views
So what? - 24/01/2017 01:58:34 PM 576 Views
He's a cypher - 21/01/2017 01:42:53 AM 470 Views
Fear is a tricky thing...isn't it. - 24/01/2017 05:54:52 PM 444 Views
Yeah, liberals claim to be in constant fear, while commiting all the fearsome acts! - 24/01/2017 09:31:11 PM 480 Views
Calm your liver..... - 25/01/2017 08:56:29 PM 419 Views
Why don't you calm down and stop arguing against positions I have never taken? - 27/01/2017 09:38:53 PM 523 Views
? - 30/01/2017 10:35:00 PM 487 Views
Re: ? - 07/02/2017 03:31:58 AM 518 Views
Trump is rocking it with the exec orders! - 25/01/2017 04:05:10 AM 450 Views

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