Comparing the Candidates for President: 2024

Campaign season for the 2024 Presidential Election is well underway. As candidates enter the field, I have listened to their initial campaign speeches and interviews. My goal with this page has been to try to sift through the political rhetoric and try to get an idea of what they say they will actually DO if they become president. It hasn’t always been an easy task, but I’ve tried my best!

The following candidates are included in this comparison:

Abortion

Biden – Veto any attempted national ban on abortion.

Trump – Protect “innocent life.”

Scott – Honor our creator and respect every innocent life.

Christie – The Dobbs decision was the right decision because Roe Vs. Wade was constitutionally flawed. Dobbs sent the decision about abortion back to the states, closer to the local voters, which is where it belongs because that is closer to the local culture, mores and values. I am pro-life in my heart, but even more important than what is in my heart is that I believe in the constitution and the rule of law, and that means the people of the state get to decide how they want to deal with this really difficult, horrible decision. It’s a fraught, moral decision and I think that is best dealt with by people at the state level. In America people have the right to stay and fight in their state or pick up and move to a state where their ideas are more the norm. That is why it is better to decide it state my state, instead of just flipping it back and forth depending on if conservatives or liberals are in charge of the federal government.

Pence – As your president I will always stand for the sanctity of life, and I will not rest, and I will not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the land.

Hutchinson – I stepped up to take on runaway federal spending, to fight for a strong national defense, to support the life of unborn children, and to unleash the private sector of our economy.

Elder – I am pro-life. In my opinion abortion is a crime. In my opinion abortion is homicide, and I’m adamantly opposed to it. I think a lot of American people don’t realize that all the overturning of Roe v Wade did was put the matter back into the states. The whole issue of abortion, Roe v. Wade, never should have been taken up by the Supreme Court. Now, the issue of abortion goes back to the states where it ought to be. If it’s a state issue, by definition, I would not support a federal abortion ban.

Burgum – I think legislation about abortion is absolutely something that should fall to the states. The Dobbs decision made that clear, that this was a decision for the states, and that’s where I think that decision should be made.

West – Women should have control over their own bodies.

Architecture

Trump – Get rid of ugly buildings that are hurting those cities – return to classical style of western civilization

Big Tech

Biden – Pass bipartisan legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage.

We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experimenting they are doing on our children for profit.

Pass bipartisan legislation to stop big tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data that companies collect on all of us.

Ramaswamy – We’re on a precipice. Don’t even call it “Big Tech” censorship anymore. Call it what it is: It is Government Tech censorship, where government is using these companies to do through the back door what government could not get done through the front door. If these tech companies are going to be responsive to the federal government in Washington DC, then they ought to be bound by the same constraints as the federal government in Washington DC. If it is state action in disguises, the Constitution applies. Bind them by the First Amendment.

Bi-Partisanship & Compromise

Biden – Democrats and Republicans came together to defend a stronger and safe Europe. Democrats and Republicans came together to pass a once-in-a-generation infrastructure law… the largest investment in infrastructure since President Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. Democrats and Republicans came together to pass legislation helping victims exposed to toxic burn pits. Democrats and Republicans came together to pass the bipartisan Chips & Science Act. Signed over 300 bipartisan pieces of legislation since becoming president.

Christie – I won’t apologize for saying what I say and believing what I believe but I also will not condemn someone else for having a different opinion. First, I’ll try to convince them they’re wrong and try to get them on my side. If that fails, then it’s my job as the executive leader of the government to find a place where we can meet somewhere near the middle. That way we can at least partially resolve that issue and move on to the next one. If we don’t, we’re going to stay in neutral, and countries who are neutral by definition get smaller, and less significant, less prosperous, and less free.

Pence – We will seek not to divide the American people but instead to appeal to the better angels of their nature.

Kennedy – We have a polarization in this country today that is so toxic and so dangerous …. when I talked to both Republican friends and Democratic friends they talk about this division in almost apocalyptical terms. Nobody can see a safe way or a good way out of it and people are preparing for kind of a dystopian future. One of the principal missions of my campaign and my presidency is going to be to end that division. I’m going to try to do that by encouraging people to talk about the values that we have in common rather than the issues that keep us apart, and also, and this I think is the most important thing, I’m going to do that by telling the truth to the American people.

Hurd – The stalemate we see in our democracy right now comes from our leaders’ failure to understand a simple fact: We are better together. Solving the problem of gun violence, along with other great issues of our era, will require commonsense leadership in these complicated times, and communities across America are depending on it.

Ramaswamy – I think the defining political divide right now is not Democrat versus Republican; it is pro American versus anti-American. I think that there’s the portion of the country that agrees with those basic principles I articulated: meritocracy, getting ahead on your own commitment and hard work and dedication regardless of the color of your skin, that you’re free to speak your mind as long as your neighbors can in return, that the people we like to run the government run the government according to democratic self-governance rather than according to an aristocracy. That’s the pro American side…What I will offer you is not to be the leader in pummeling the other side into the ground – though I can do it I’ve done it on Fox News and elsewhere for the last couple of years – but if we’re going to have a nation left at the end of it, it is not about pummeling the other side into the ground and burying them. We should make a declaration of independence from, not just China, but from that merger of state power and corporate power that is the new form of fascism that reigns. We can make this a 1776 moment – a moment where the pro-American movement defeats the anti-American movement in this country.

Elder – You need to have leaders who can show that you can agree to disagree without being disagreeable. I’d like to think that I’m that that kind of person. I just think a lot of people in this country have been segregated into their own tribes and don’t realize that there are people in the other tribe who are personable, who are empathetic, who understand that you disagree but we both want the same things. We want people to realize their God-given ability in America. If we can agree on that, then maybe we can go forward and not be at each other’s throats.

West– We have to learn to be self-critical and self-confident without being self-righteous. We need a certain kind of humility, tied to a certain kind of tenacity. There’s nothing wrong with standing up for your views, but we have to learn how to listen and take other people’s views seriously. That is what public life is all about. Once democracy loses that, you get into polarized name-calling and you end up with gangsterized bows and arrows going in both directions.

China

Biden – Work with China where it can advance American interests and benefit the world. But make it clear, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.

Trump – Revoke China’s favored nation status.

Create a four-year year plan to phase out Chinese goods and gain total independence from China.

Hold the Chinese Communist Party responsible for releasing the “China Virus” upon the world.

Haley – Communist China will end up on the ash heap of history.

Scott – Win the competition with China. China started this new economic Cold War, but, America, we’re going to finish it.

Christie – China is supporting Russia. The war in Ukraine is a proxy for a war between the United States and China. It is similar to the situation with China and Taiwan. The majority of the semiconductors in the world are made in Taiwan. We don’t want China to control that.

We cannot isolate China. They are the second largest economy in the world. But, up to now we have been giving them advantages because they were considered a “developing country.” The time for those advantages is over. I’m willing to have a fair relationship with China, but it’s got to be a fair relationship. They should abide by the fair trading rules they agreed to follow when they joined the World Trade Organization. They need to understand that if they want to continue flouting those rules – blocking things, encouraging other countries to denounce the United States – that we will do those things back. We are not putting up a wall and saying we won’t do business, that would be destructive to both of us. We need to make this a level playing field. They have respect for our intellectual property, and we have respect for theirs. They have respect for our manufacturing and we respect theirs. Respect for their ability to trade and respect for hours. You are much less likely to go to war with someone who respects you. We need to rebuild that respect with China in both directions.

Suarez – We need a strategy that brings back American manufacturing from China, secures our borders and creates immigration policy that best serves our country’s goals.

Make no mistake China is not our partner. China is now our adversary. The latest figures show a trillion dollars of wealth are transferred annually through our trade deficit and the theft of our intellectual property. Communist China has used our wealth to undermine American power and Leadership across the world, but especially in our own hemisphere. China has weaponized our social media to unleash the most powerful Kryptonite against democracy, and we’re giving it to them folks, guess what — it’s division.

They’ve introduced fentanyl through our border which kills 80 to 90, 000 Americans annually. That’s almost the equivalent of a 747 crashing every single day. Just this week it was reported that China is using Cuba as a military outpost, elevating Cuba from an ideological threat to a national security threat. This must not stand and if we choose the right leader, we will win this generational conflict.

Hurd – The fact that you have the Chinese coming into Cuba expanding their intelligence footprints in that country is because of a failure of growing our alliances and networks in the Western Hemisphere. We have to have great alliances and that starts within our own backyard.

Hutchinson – We cannot yield to China in terms of global leadership. When the Biden administration conducted its disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, we left our friends abandoned and our allies confused. America looked weak, and that weakness was seen as an opportunity for Russia to invade Ukraine, and then for China to threaten and be aggressive toward Taiwan. Let me assure you as president, I will bring out the best of America. We will stand with our allies, and we will stand with our friends.

Ramaswamy – I commit to a declaration of independence from China – that is the Declaration of Independence of the 21st Century. It will not be easy. The easy stuff is abandoning this climate religion that shackles the United States without shackling China. The easy stuff is to begin to at least bring up our own industrial base so that we could stand on our own two feet instead of depending on an enemy for the phones in our pocket and the shoes in our feet. That’s the easy stuff. But we have got to go further to exact the retribution, the payment – financially speaking – for wreaking havoc on the world with the covid-19 pandemic. Because if we don’t use every Financial lever available to us, you can expect worse in the future. I think we need to ban U.S. companies from doing business in China until the CCP either falls or reforms its behaviors. I’m a hardliner on that and I am not budging.

Elder – China is our number one adversary. They have infiltrated this country like a trojan horse. They’ve endowed all these “China chairs” all over America in our colleges and universities to, in my opinion, indoctrinate students into not believing that China is the oppressive authoritarian regime that it is. They bought farmland near sensitive military installations. They are saber rattling against Taiwan. They’re stealing technology, or making it a requirement that you divulge your technology if you do work in China. They want to dominate the world economically, if not militarily. They are a huge problem, a huge threat. We ought to be decoupling ourselves from China. We shouldn’t be dependent on China for pharmaceuticals, as we are, or for military components, as we are, or for the stuff that goes into our cell phones. I would encourage the people to manufacture things here. I would talk about the threat of our growing dependence on China. I would unite the countries around China so that there’s a united front, so that China knows that if they continue their aggression there’s going to be a consequence. It is true that we get a lot of our components from China. It’s also true that China gets a lot of their money from us, from the West. So, the West has to show a united front that China will suffer economically if China continues its aggression.

Burgum – We’re facing a very real threat from China. Joe Biden’s green new deal policies? They’re only going to shift our dependence from OPEC to Sino-Pec. That makes no sense. When we’re truly energy independent, and we’re supporting our allies, that’s when we stabilize the globe and restore America as a leader of the Free World.

Constitution & Freedoms

Trump – Defend free speech.

Scott – Stop the far-left assault on our religious liberty. Preserve one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Pence – We must stand on the Constitution to protect the God-given right to life. We must stand on the Constitution to protect the right to keep and bear arms.

We must stand for the Constitution to protect the right to live, to work, to worship according to the dictates of our faith and conscience.

As your president I will appoint men and women to our federal courts who will uphold all the God-given liberties enshrined in our constitution: First Amendment freedom of speech and religion, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. And, they will stand for the sanctity of human life.

We should make a declaration of independence from, not just China, but from that merger of state power and corporate power that is the new form of fascism that reigns. We can make this a 1776 moment – a moment where the pro-American movement defeats the anti-American movement in this country.

Ramaswamy (Free speech) – We’re on a precipice. Don’t even call it “Big Tech” censorship anymore. Call it what it is: It is Government Tech censorship, where government is using these companies to do through the back door what government could not get done through the front door. If these tech companies are going to be responsive to the federal government in Washington DC, then they ought to be bound by the same constraints as the federal government in Washington DC. If it is state action in disguises, the Constitution applies. Bind them by the First Amendment. It’s not just limited to the Internet. It’s a culture of censorship. I think we need to make political expression a civil right in this country. If you can’t fire somebody for their race, or their religion, or their sexual orientation, or their national origin –you should not be able to fire somebody on account of their political speech or their political expression either. America is not a country that forces you to choose between speaking your mind freely and putting food on the dinner table — between the American Dream and the First Amendment.

(Freedom of Religion) – There is an attack on faith in this country. There’s an attack on Christianity in this country. I can actually stand for you as a soldier in drawing that hard line and be more effective because they have to listen to me and deal with me. I am Hindu. I am deeply religious. It means a lot to me. I believe in God, and I will not apologize for it. I share your conviction that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values, and I share those values. I ask you to let me be your messenger and your vessel to actually defend that in a way that a lot of people – who temporarily wear the Christian flag on their sleeve – didn’t actually get done. Let me try doing that job for you and let’s see how that actually turns out because I will not budge an inch on this issue of religious liberty.

West – (free speech) I think it’s very important that we have conversations across ideological and political lines. They’re going to say some things that we have to call into question. We have to keep them accountable. I am suspicious of censorship, though, because usually the censorship in the end zeroes in on freedom fighters, love warriors, and the wounded healers. Censorship is something that I’m very suspicious of. I’ve got deep libertarian sensibilities in that regard.

Corporate influence on government

Kennedy – My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country, to commoditize our children and our purple Mountain’s Majesty, to poison our children and our people with chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs, to strip mine our assets, to hollow out the middle class and keep us in a constant state of War.

Williamson – The reason we have such a problem today is because it is not one specific institution that plagues us… It’s like an atomizer spray of economic Injustice… The opponent is not a specific situation or circumstance. The opponent is an economic mindset.

The opponent is an economic mindset that has had its grip on this country for the last 50 years. Over the last 48 years there has been 50 trillion dollars of wealth that has been transferred from the bottom 90 percent to the top one percent of people in this country. This country is now in the grip of an economic mindset whatever you call it – some people call it neoliberalism, some people call it free market capitalism, some people call it crony capitalism, some people call it hyper-capitalism. It is neither real capitalism, nor is it a free market. It is a sociopathic economic system.

It is a sociopathic economic system that in policy after policy after policy makes sure that those who already have, will probably get more. And those who do not have will have a hard time even surviving.

It’s time for us to look in the mirror as Americans and face the very painful fact that government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is perishing. This government is now a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

The political system, as it now exists, is institutionally resistant to profound solutions when they do not serve the short-term economic profit maximization of large corporate systems which are the donors and are the people who rule this town.

Ramaswamy – We should make a declaration of independence from, not just China, but from that merger of state power and corporate power that is the new form of fascism that reigns. We can make this a 1776 moment – a moment where the pro-American movement defeats the anti-American movement in this country.

West – It seems to me that if we are concerned about truth and justice, and if we want to preserve whatever is left of our precious democracy, we have to engage in the critique of the oligarchy and critique of the corporate duopoly way in which two parties are both tied to big money, big military, and corporate wealth. And how they don’t speak to 60% of our precious American citizens of all colors who are struggling to make it month by month.

Courts

Pence – As your president I will appoint men and women to our federal courts who will uphold all the God-given liberties enshrined in our constitution: First Amendment freedom of speech and religion, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. And, they will stand for the sanctity of human life.

Culture, Identity

Haley – America: “Strong & Proud – not Weak & Woke”

DeSantis – We will never surrender to the woke mob and we will leave woke ideology in the dustbin of History.

Scott – Destroy the liberal lie that America is an evil country.

Kennedy – We have to be more than just neocons with woke bobble heads. We need to stand up to corporations. We need to stand against war. We need to put our children first. We need to bring this back to the party of FDR, of JFK, of RFK, of Martin Luther King and those values.

Hurd – I envison an America that acknowledges science, addresses mental health and is inclusive and understanding.

Hutchinson – This campaign is about courage. It is about making the tough decisions to rebuild our economy, to give peace a chance through America’s strength, and to renew the American spirit of freedom, opportunity, and the rule of law… As a nation, our democracy’s resilience comes from our shared values, and it comes from our willingness to sacrifice for the cause of freedom…My parents taught me that we are all equal, and yet we all struggle in life. And because we struggle, we need grace and compassion toward others. It is my hope that those farmland values will once again guide our nation and bring us closer together.

Ramaswamy – There is a vacuum at the heart of our national soul. My generation – we’re so hungry for a cause. We’re hungry for purpose and meaning and identity at a point when the things that used to fill that void – things like faith, patriotism, hard work, family – these things have disappeared…We’ve got to go to that black hole. We’ve got to go upstream and fill that void with a vision of American national identity that runs so deep that it dilutes this woke agenda to irrelevance. So, what does it mean to be American? It means we believe in Merit – that you get ahead in this country not on the color of your skin, but on the content of your character and your contributions.

Elder – This whole victim mentality is, in my opinion, almost a cancer within the Black culture and I want to talk about that.

Burgum – If you want more smalltown common sense in government and big cities, we’ll make that happen.

Debt

Pence – We’ll offer common sense and compassionate solutions to the debt crisis facing our children and grandchildren and will free future Generations from a mountain range of debt.

Today we have a national debt the size of our nation’s economy for the first time since the end of World War II. We owe trillions of dollars to our adversaries 860 billion dollars to China alone. The biggest drivers of runaway spending are our New Deal and Great Society programs upon which Americans depend every day: Social Security and Medicare. They make up 70 percent of the federal budget. What you deserve to know is that Medicare has five years before it goes broke. Social security has 10 years if we’re lucky. Left unchecked and unreformed, it’ll mandate cuts in programs upon which people depend. Worse still if we don’t take the opportunity to reform these entitlements today, in 25 years that 32 trillion will grow to 150 trillion and crush the future of the American economy and opportunities for our children and grandchildren. I will tell the American people the truth about our debt crisis, and we will offer common sense and compassionate reforms to save these programs for seniors today and give young Americans a better deal tomorrow.

Hutchinson – Both Democratic and Republican administrations bear responsibility for our current $31 trillion national debt. I would like to say we will be debt free in ’33. Well, it might take longer, but we must start.

Elder – I’ve been proposing an amendment to the Constitution to fix spending to a certain percentage of the GDP. Otherwise, government iss going to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, because much of the spending is on automatic pilot. Government has gotten bigger under Ronald Reagan. It got bigger on the George Herbert Walker Bush. It got bigger under George W. Bush. It got bigger under Donald Trump. The only way to restrain spending is through a law that stops politicians from spending, because you don’t run and win elections by saying you’re going to take things away from people! The only way to reduce government to the size the founding fathers intended, is to force them through an amendment to the Constitution.

West – You can see the national debt has much to do with the wars: Iraq, trillions of dollars; Afghanistan, trillions of dollars; Ukraine, now over $135 billion and growing. Therefore, we have to be honest about how the national debt is tied to war and what it means to be critical of war.

Economy

Biden – Build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up, and the wealthy still do very well, and we all do well.

Make sure the supply chain for America begins in America.

Pass bipartisan legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage.

Trump – End inflation – rebuild the economy.

Create a quantum leap in American standards of living. Hold a competition to build new “freedom cities” across our nation giving countless Americans a new shot at homeownership and a real shot at the American dream.

Haley – End inflation and build an economy that works for all (like we did in South Carolina)

End corporate welfare and bail outs for big business. End earmarks and pork that fuel big government.

DeSantis – Reverse inflationary policies that are hurting working people. Stop pricing hard-working Americans out of a good standard of living through inflationary borrow, print and spending policies.

Build an economy where working Americans can achieve a good standard of living.

Scott – Win the next century by the strength of our economy. Ramp up research and development. Reclaim our supply chains. Re-energize our manufacturing base with Opportunity Zones 2.0 and an entire “Made in America” agenda.

Work toward a vision of …

Exponential innovation where America leads the world with new breakthroughs where new medical cures
Cheaper drugs and lower health care costs become the norm, lengthening the lives of our citizens
Law enforcement has the advanced equipment to keep each and every one of them safe
Huge new American factories, creating high paying American jobs, running on plentiful cheap American energy

Motivate, Inspire, and require every able-bodied citizen to take responsibility and go to work.

Christie – We have to be able to encourage job growth in this country because jobs are changing so rapidly, especially post-pandemic. I think the best way to do that is to lower regulations in this country and let entrepreneurs create jobs. One of America’s greatnesses is that we continue to evolve and grow and get bigger and better and find out how to use new technology to be able to grow but we can’t do that if our entrepreneurs are spending a third of their time filling out forms for the government who is telling them what they can’t do.

Pence – We’ll end Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar spending spree that’s driving inflation and making life more expensive for every American and we’ll set our nation back on a path to a balanced budget. We will make America’s government follow the model of families by living within its means.

We’ll break the Unholy alliance between Wall Street and big government that’s forcing radical ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) policies on the private sector.

Suarez – Miami just received an upgrade to its credit rating, making it the best rating in our history. Miami has built a growing economic base with sustainable surpluses and a disciplined approach to spending. What a shocking word, “disciplined approach to spending.”

Williamson – We should be making an emergency level, just, transition from a dirty economy to a clean economy, and an emergency level, just, transition from a war economy to a peace economy.

I am guided by the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said that a necessitous man is not a free man. Not every chain is visible. It is time for us to release the shackles that are on the 64% Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck. It is time for us to do what other generations have done. Franklin Roosevelt said that we would not have to worry about a Fascist takeover as long as democracy delivered on its blessings. Given the economic situation of far too many Americans today, given the behavior of this corporate Matrix – whether it has to do with insurance companies, big pharmaceutical companies, big oil companies big agricultural companies, big food companies, big chemical companies, or the military industrial complex and the defense contractors that they serve — they have had their day. Corporate tyranny will end now.

Hurd – I envison an America where the economy thrives because we harness technology like artificial intelligence to grow American jobs not unemployment. I’ll put our American Security and prosperity first.

Hutchinson – First, we need to get our economy back on track. To turn our economy around, we have to stop the “break the bank” federal spending that has led to high inflation and rising interest rates…We will reduce the burden of government. We will lower the federal deficit, and we will unleash the power of the private sector. Our families will have more to spend and save for their children’s future.

Burgum – Innovation, that’s always been the driver of America. Innovation over regulation. Innovation over regulation is how you solve the challenges we face today. Regulation looks backwards. Innovation looks towards the future. When I was in high school we were told two things were absolutely certain about our future: the world is going to run out of food, and the world is going to run out of energy. However today we live in a world of abundance because of American innovation. Innovation has paved the way for a better life for all Americans. The potential and the possibility of the coming breakthroughs in software, and biotech, and energy, and healthcare can continue this trend but due to over regulation that brighter future for Americans is now at risk. Let’s get back to common sense. Let’s eliminate red tape, get inflation under control, cut taxes, reduce the cost of living, and help every American realize their fullest potential.

West – My God, 23% of children live in poverty in the richest nation in the history of the world. We have so much big money floating at the top…It is hemorrhaged at the top. There has been a massive distribution from poor working people to the well-to-do. That’s organized greed at the top. Now, Greed runs through all of us as human beings, we all have greed…but organized greed? This is what we are dealing with, and it makes no sense to have three individuals with wealth equivalent to the bottom 150 million American citizens. Three individuals that have wealth equivalent to 50% of the American citizenry. One percent at the top have wealth equal to 90%. They say, “We deserve it. It’s meritorious.” Please! We know the arbitrary nature of the redistribution of wealth has gone from working people to the well-to-do in the last 50 years. That is what we need to call radically into question.

Education

Biden – Provide access to preschool. Give public school teachers a raise. Reduce student debt and increase Pell grants.

Connect students to career opportunities starting in high school, provide access for two years of community college, the best career training in America, in addition to being a pathway to a four-year degree. Let’s offer every American the path to a good career whether they go to college or not.

Trump – Cut federal funding to any school pushing critical race theory, transgender “insanity” and other racial, political or sexual content on our children. Fight for universal school choice, including the direct election of principals by the parents.

Not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.

Haley – Every child gets a world class education because every parent gets to pick their child’s school.

No politician will be able to close schools ever again.

Scott – Lead a revolution for excellence in our schools – less CRT and more ABC’s. Make sure every family has a choice and every parent has a voice giving every child chance. No child should be forced to attend failing schools simply because they live in the wrong ZIP code.

Christie – One of the priorities for the first hundred days would be to pass a bill on federal tax credits for educational choice. You should not be stuck with whatever education you get because you’re not well off.

Pence – When I am president American families will have a champion in the white house who will give parents the freedom to choose where their children go to school. We will reject radical propaganda and we will demand respect for our history and religious freedom.

Suarez – In Miami we chose to expand economic freedom by expanding educational freedom. We passed a Child Savings Account so that every elementary school student can benefit from gaining financial literacy skills for themselves and their parents at an early age.

We raised private sector dollars to create a first in family scholarship fund so any first-generation American living in Miami who seeks the American dream to attend college can live it.

We launched the Miami Charter School Network where the city of Miami and Miami-Dade College provided the space and accreditation for new charter schools to give parents more options for their children and to incentivize the integration of tech into education.

Hurd – I envision an America where every child – regardless of location or age – has access to a safe, world- class education.

Hutchinson – As governor of Arkansas, I had a priority and I expanded access to computer science education. And the result was going from 1,100 students who took computer science. To over 23,000 students taking computer science. We went from 20 certified teachers to over 650 who are certified to teach computer science in our classrooms. We made it required to be offered in our rural schools as well as our urban schools. The result is that Arkansas led the nation in computer science education, and made a real difference in tech opportunities for young people. It is critical that we follow this model as a nation if we are going to compete with communist China. The fact is that US test scores in math and science are falling behind other countries. The top five math scoring countries are in Asia and the United States places 11^th as a nation in terms of math education. We must do better for our students. As president, I will expand computer science education into every grade school and high school in America. I will focus our higher education to produce more engineers and scientists so that we can compete.

Ramaswamy – I think that moral education, civic education in schools is actually something that I took away from my high school experience. It’s too bad I had to go to a private school to get it. You can get it in a not-expressly-Christian form in public schools, but I worry about that if it’s done top down from the federal government…I’m shutting down the Federal Department of Education because it has no reason to exist. We need to protect against a top-down moral education or civic education because that lends itself to capture… But, if you have a distributed system of competition and combine that with transparency – for example, whatever you are teaching needs to be on the website – the combination of transparency and choice creates the space for reviving moral and civic education…I gave a speech in Wisconsin about a year and a half ago where I proposed cameras in classrooms — I mean there’s no there’s no reason for that not to exist. That’s not because people are going to be there watching it the whole time – it’s the sense of accountability. It’s a sense of who’s actually in charge.

Elder – I think a lot of people, particularly Black people, are unaware of some of the stats. Eighty-five percent of Black 8th graders, these are black kids who are 13 years old, 85 % of them are neither reading nor math proficient at grade level, 85%. This is a national scandal. It’s appalling, and I think most blacks are unaware of it. We need to have choice in school, but the Democratic party and the teachers’ union are wedded at the hip, and teachers’ unions do not support school choice. I support school choice. The money should follow the child, rather than the other way around. We’re outspending virtually all of our European competitors and all of our Asian competitors. It’s not the money. It’s where the money is being spent.

Energy

Trump – Reclaim energy independence and achieve energy dominance.

Haley – Start pumping more oil and gas and stop buying dirty oil from Venezuela.

DeSantis – Embrace American Energy Independence.

Pence – We will unleash American Energy, open federal lands, and America will become energy independent once again.

Hutchinson – We need a pro-growth energy policy that is not focused on limits, but on production. We should not limit American growth, but rather we should unleash our energy producers.

Elder – I’m concerned about the fact that we have gone from being energy independent to being energy dependent. There has been a war on oil and gas. I will reverse that war on oil and gas. I will allow drilling for oil on federal lands. I will allow for fracking. I will authorize the Keystone Pipeline. The reason oil is so important is that it’s a backbone of virtually everything. Almost all goods are transported somewhere. So, when gas prices go up, the price of goods go up. I think Trump did a fantastic job as president on being energy independent, and I’m going to continue those policies.

Burgum – (energy independence) We need to stop buying energy from our enemies and start selling energy to our friends and allies. America produces energy cleaner and safer than anywhere else in the world. If you care about the global environment, you should be fighting to have every drop of energy produced in the United States. And when we’re truly energy independent, and we’re supporting our allies, that’s when we stabilize the globe and restore America as a leader of the Free World. Putin only dared to invade Ukraine because our allies in Western Europe were all dependent on Russian energy.

(Renewable Energy) I just think there’s a big opportunity in the future in all renewable fuels – ethanol, biodiesel. The real big opportunity for this country is sustainable aviation fuel. We’re not going to have battery operated commercial flights flying across our oceans anytime soon. Decades and decades of liquid fuels are going to be required for a growing demand for aviation around the world. And the absolute best place to deliver sustainable aviation fuels is going to come from the heartland of America. It has the potential to double the size of the ethanol industry. It increases the value of the farmer’s crops and increases the value of their land. That increases the opportunity for all the suppliers that sell them seed, fertilizer, everything – all that helps grow communities across the Midwest. That raises the revenue that pays for schools and healthcare and pays whatever. When we can lift the economy through expanding an opportunity like ethanol, then everybody else benefits as well. This is an area where we have got to focus on innovation, that’s what’s driven America forward, not on regulation, and it’s a great example.

Entitlements, Income Supports

Biden – If anyone tries to cut Social Security (which apparently no one is going to do), if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I will stop them. I will veto it. I will not let Medicare be taken away, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Make sure working parents can afford to raise a family with sick days, paid family and medical leave, affordable childcare. That is going to enable millions more people to go to work.

Restore the full child tax credit, which gave tens of millions of parents some breathing room and cut child poverty in half, to the lowest level in history.

Get more families access to affordable, quality housing.

Get seniors who want to stay in their homes the care they need to do so. Let’s give more breathing room to millions of family caregivers.

Trump – Protect Social Security and Medicare.

Support baby bonuses for the new baby boom that will be coming.

Scott – Motivate, Inspire, and require every able-bodied citizen to take responsibility and go to work.

Christie – In seven years Social Security is going to be broke if we don’t do something about it. Then everyone’s going to get a 25% reduction in benefits immediately, that’s written into the law. We need to deal with Social Security and have a bipartisan conversation about how to fix it because seven years is not a long way away.

Pence – Today we have a national debt the size of our nation’s economy for the first time since the end of World War II. We owe trillions of dollars to our adversaries 860 billion dollars to China alone. The biggest drivers of runaway spending are our New Deal and Great Society programs upon which Americans depend every day: Social Security and Medicare. They make up 70 percent of the federal budget. What you deserve to know is that Medicare has five years before it goes broke. Social security has 10 years if we’re lucky. Left unchecked and unreformed, it’ll mandate cuts in programs upon which people depend. Worse still if we don’t take the opportunity to reform these entitlements today, in 25 years that 32 trillion will grow to 150 trillion and crush the future of the American economy and opportunities for our children and grandchildren. I will tell the American people the truth about our debt crisis, and we will offer common sense and compassionate reforms to save these programs for seniors today and give young Americans a better deal tomorrow.

Williamson – Why does one in four Americans carry medical debt? Why is it that 18 million Americans cannot fulfill the prescriptions that are given them by their doctors? Why is it that 68,000 Americans die in this country every year for lack of Health Care? Why? Because we don’t have Universal Health Care. In every other advanced democracy these positions — such as universal health care, such as such as free college (higher education and tech school), such as free child care, such as paid family leave and sick pay, such as a guaranteed living wage, and such as a 21st century Economic Bill of Rights — those are moderate positions in every other country. Every other country has them. They are mainstream. Ladies and gentlemen, hear me when I tell you this — the American people have been trained to expect so little, the American people have been played!

Hutchinson– When it comes to those who depend upon Social Security and Medicaid, I will assure the strength and reliability of those programs into the future. Right now, Social Security is financially stable into 2033. Medicare is stable into 2028.As we have successfully done in the past, I will immediately convene an independent commission to assure the future of Social Security and Medicare long into the future, this commission will be modeled after the 1983 Commission that was chaired by Alan Greenspan. It led to legislation that successfully extended the life of these vital retirement programs for all Americans. Americans need to have confidence in their future. And this action will stabilize and ensure the future of supplemental retirement programs Americans depend upon.

Elder – We have to do something about the so called entitlement programs. I know it’s the third rail of politics. Whenever you talk about reforming entitlements, that’s almost electoral disaster. That’s why I’m proposing an amendment to the constitution that will fix spending to a certain percentage of the GDP with exceptions for war and for natural disaster. Otherwise, both parties are going to continue to spend. If, however, you shackle their hands to 50% of the GDP, they have to go to a room, lock the door, and then come out with a balanced budget. They can say, “The devil made me do it!”

Environment

Kennedy – There’s no daylight between good environmental policy and good economic policy. You’ll hear this Mantra, this trope from the big polluters and their indentured servants on Capitol Hill and elsewhere that we have to choose between economic prosperity and environmental protection. That’s a false choice. In 100% of the situations good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy. One of the things that I’ve done over the past 30 years as an environmental advocate is to constantly go around and confront this argument that an investment in our environment is a diminishment of our nation’s wealth. It doesn’t diminish wealth. It’s an investment in infrastructure, the same as investing in telecommunications or road construction. It’s an investment we have to make if we’re going to ensure the economic vitality of our generation and future generations.

Williamson – We should be making an emergency level, just, transition from a dirty economy to a clean economy, and an emergency level, just, transition from a war economy to a peace economy.

Fatherlessness Epidemic

Elder – The number one social problem in America is the epidemic of fatherlessness. There are 40 % of American kids who now come into the world without a father in the home married to the mother. I attribute it to the welfare state. In the mid-60s, I think with the best of intentions, Lyndon Johnson launched what he called the war on poverty. This basically provided benefits to women who are unmarried provided there’s no man in the house. From that point on, out-of-wedlock birth in America exploded.

We’ve incentivized women to “marry” the government and incentivized men to abandon their financial and more responsibility. A kid raised without a father is five times more likely to be poor, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and 20 times would like to end up in jail.

These kids need to have some sort of father role model. I am encouraging all the people of my generation, the baby boom generation, to become mentors for men and women who are growing up in America without fathers. I’m also going to propose legislation to allow you to direct your tax dollars to go for welfare or to organizations in your own community, churches in your own community. There are lots of organizations where the people are in the neighborhoods doing counseling, where the results are going to be far more effective, where people are going to be far more likely to be put on a path towards independence rather than dependence on welfare.

Fentanyl, Drug Cartels

Biden – Launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale and trafficking.

Haley – Stop the surge of drugs and immigration through “real” border and mandatory e-verify (like we got done in South Carolina)

DeSantis – Shut down the Border. Construct the border wall and hold the drug cartels accountable.

Scott – Drug cartels using Chinese labs and Mexican factories to kill Americans will cease to exist. I will freeze their assets. I will build the wall, and I will allow the world’s greatest military to fight these terrorists because that’s exactly what they are.

Hutchinson– I will go after the cartels who are killing Americans with a deadly drug, fentanyl.

Ramaswamy – I believe a proper use of the US military is to go in and decimate the cartels – physically decimate the cartels. Air strikes — go Bin Laden on them — as the terrorists that they are. That’s how we solve the fentanyl crisis. We are “game over” in 6 months. One cycle of shock and awe, and we’re done with the fentanyl crisis.

Burgum – An out-of-control border that is ignored by the White House while killer drugs like fentanyl infiltrate our communities makes no sense. 110,000 families in 2022 lost a son, a daughter, a mother, a father, a sister, or brother to overdoses – and we’re doing nothing about the border? That makes no sense.

Foreign Policy

Ramaswamy– I am committed to pro-Israel policy not because I stand for Israel, but because I stand for America. I think that we have got to be careful with continuing to view it through that lens. That is not an end in itself. It is a means to the end of advancing American interests. Do I see possibilities for commitments vis-à-vis having Saudi Arabia’s boot on our neck, especially when we’ve shot ourselves in the foot with respect to domestic oil production here at home, that can put pressure on that commitment? I think yes. That brings me back to a broader point in my foreign policy: the stronger we are at home to do what we need for ourselves, the more we can actually have a clear-headed foreign policy abroad.

Burgum – We need to recognize the real threats to America and strengthen our national security. Growing up in a small town you learn quickly the enemy isn’t each other. Our enemies aren’t our neighbors down the street. Our enemies are countries that want to see our way of life destroyed. In a country built on neighbors helping neighbors we have become a country of neighbors fighting neighbors. We should all be fighting to unite the country against our common enemies like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and the drug cartels.

West – I want a U. S. foreign policy that is not tied just a big money and corporate interest. I want a foreign policy that acknowledges that America is a nation among nations. We don’t have to be the policeman of the world.

Can we be candid about the underside of our society and access the sunny side? U.S. foreign policy…can we be honest in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, for example. Can we have a deep commitment to Jewish security and Palestinian dignity, but recognize that the Israeli state is occupying and dominating precious Palestinians, and every day it is expanding. Does that make you antisemitic? No! Not if you make sure you’re staying in contact with the humanity of jewish brothers and sisters. But, if you are standing in contact with the humanity of Palestinian brothers and sisters, you ‘ve got to bring an indictment of the occupation, an indictment of the domination, an indictment of the expansion and try to create conditions under which their dignity can flower and flourish . In terms of policy, it is complicated in terms of the moral and spiritual issues. We have to be very honest about that. Yet, you cannot get peep out of the Republican party or Democratic party when there is a massacre of Palestinians. No one says a mumblin’ word. That is morally obscene. That is spiritual malnutrition.

Government Administration

Biden – Honor the results of our elections, not subvert the will of the people. Uphold the rule of the law and restore trust in our institutions of democracy.

Trump – Support a constitutional amendment to put term limits on members of congress. Fully secure our elections. Goal will be one day voting with all paper ballots.

Haley – Term limits for congress. Mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.

DeSantis – We cannot have a true constitutional government if the most significant issues are decided by the whims of unelected bureaucrats. Re-establish integrity in our institutions by returning government to its rightful owners, we the people. We will reconstitutionalize the executive branch and bring the administrative state to heel.

Kennedy – You need a president at this time in history who can stand up to his bureaucracy. With most of our agencies the problem is the people who end up rising in those agencies generally are people who are in the tank with industry and that’s how they get corrupted. One of the things that I think I can do better than any other political candidate is I know how to fix them because I’ve spent so much time litigating and studying these agencies.

Hutchinson – Too often our businesses and families are held back by a federal bureaucracy that is out of control, heavy-handed and wasteful. As president, I will reduce the federal civilian workforce by 10%. You can believe me when I say I will do this, because I have done it. In Arkansas I reduced the state executive workforce by 14%, and there is a lot more room for improvement in Washington than even in Arkansas.

Ramaswamy – I think it needs to be at the top of the Republican agenda to repeal Civil Service protections, to repeal federal employee union protections…I think a lot of these government agencies now have gone so far off the reservation that the only way to reform them is actually to shut them down — that begins from the Department of Education to the FBI. We will shut down the agencies that cannot be reformed from within. “Shutting down” means just decimating, just totally leveling, gutting that administrative state, that three letter alphabet soup from the SEC to the FTC to the FAA to the TSA. I will run the federal government the way it needs to be run – by firing the people and shutting down the agencies that need to be shut down. The first step is to take the existing edifice and mostly burn it down, not in a physical and literal sense, but basically burn it down. I call it gutting it. I will take about 50% of the federal agencies and shut them down. Among the other half, we’re going to take about half the employees there and fire them. For the 50% of agencies that we keep, we’re going to take a majority of them and spread them out across the country. Get them out of Washington DC. Make them more accountable to the people they’re supposed to serve.

Burgum – The government itself is one of the most inefficient operations, because in many cases, government doesn’t have competition. If you’re the only place, say, to get a driver’s license, well then you don’t have to be good or fast or convenient. I’ve seen you can take out all kinds of costs out of government. The first year we were there, we cut $1.7 billion of the North Dakota State budget, out of a $6 billion budget. We cut it by 1.7 billion the first year and everything kept running on time and services got better. So, this idea that government has to grow and grow and grow – that’s only true if you don’t apply all the all the new approaches, and processes, and technology that every business has had to apply.

Guns

Biden – Background checks on gun purchases for 18- to 21-year-olds and red flag laws. Keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others.

Ban assault weapons now.

Pence – We must stand on the Constitution to protect the right to keep and bear arms.

Hurd – When I was in Congress, I had an A rating from the National Rifle Association and received support from the group for my reelection campaigns. I believe in the Second Amendment; its language is straightforward. For almost a decade, my job overseas as an undercover officer in the CIA required me to carry weapons, and I continue to be a gun owner as a private citizen, because I believe in being able to defend my home.

No one-size-fits-all solution can tackle this problem, but let’s also not pretend that nothing can be done. After 9/11, we made it improbable that another attack of that scale on our homeland would happen again: revamping airport security, neutralizing Al Qaeda, and improving federal agencies’ intelligence sharing. Yet when confronted with the epidemic of mass shootings that plagues our nation, we have failed to treat it with a similar level of urgency and significance. Instead, the majority of our leaders have chosen inaction.

We can take significant steps toward curbing gun violence by implementing comprehensive background checks, empowering law enforcement through red-flag laws, investing in mental health, and raising the minimum age to 21 for purchasing a high-caliber, semiautomatic weapon that can hold a high-capacity magazine. These realistic solutions deserve serious consideration at the federal level.

Happiness

Suarez – My governing philosophy has been built on advancing happiness for all of my residents by protecting their life and expanding their liberties. This has led to Miami being ranked, you guessed it, the happiest city in America and the healthiest city in America.

Health

Biden – Let’s cap the cost of insulin for everybody at $35.

Expand coverage of Medicaid.

Remain vigilant against COVID. We still need to monitor dozens of variants and support new vaccines and treatments.

Do more on mental health, especially for our children. When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care at their schools.

Re-ignite the cancer moonshot. Our goal is to cut the cancer death rates at least by 50 percent over the next 25 years. Turn more cancers from death sentences to treatable diseases. Provide more support for patients and families.

Trump – Not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.

Haley – No politician will be able to close schools ever again.

DeSantis – Make sure that medical authoritarianism such as unconstitutional covid vax mandates can never happen again.

Scott – Work toward a vision of … Exponential innovation where America leads the world with new breakthroughs where new medical cures, cheaper drugs and lower health care costs become the norm, lengthening the lives of our citizens.

Christie (Cost of pharmaceuticals) – I think everybody goes to the extremes on these issues. Some people don’t want any controls on the pharmaceutical industry. Some people want to control prices and control what goes to the pharmaceutical industry in terms of profits. We have to find a balance between price and innovation. Our system is built on the idea that if you take risk you may lose, but if you win, you’ll win big. We should continue to have that incentive.

But we can help regulate waste. I think prescription drug commercials, for example, are an incredible waste, and I think there are other places where they waste as well.

The real evil agents in all this are the pharmacy benefit managers. They are the middlemen between the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance company and your local pharmacy. The pharmaceutical industry gives hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions of dollars every year in discounts off of their drugs. Guess who keeps most of the discounts? The pharmacy benefit managers. We need common sense reform of that. So those are two ideas, eliminate advertising and regulate pharmacy benefit managers can help bring down prices while not destroying the Ingenuity and the inventiveness of the American pharmaceutical industry.

Kennedy – I want to just talk about the chronic disease epidemic because to me, arguably, this is the worst attack on the middle class in this country. We have the worst health care system in the United States of America. We spend more on health care by far than any other country and we have the worst Health outcomes. We spend 4.3 trillion dollars annually on health. 4.3 trillion! And about 84% of that goes to treating chronic disease. America has the highest chronic disease burden in the world. We didn’t always. In 1940s 50s and 60s we had a really healthy population … Something happened in 1989 and we know that it is an environmental insult because genes don’t cause epidemics. There’s a limited number of culprits of chemical toxins that became ubiquitous around 1989. We just need to figure out what it is. When I am the President of the United States, I am going to end the chronic disease epidemic in this country. If I have not significantly dropped the level of chronic disease in our children by the end of my first term, I do not want you to reelect me.

Elder – The reason our health care costs are so high is because the government is involved. The government pays almost 50% of our health care costs. You know health care is a commodity like anything else. The more competition, the cheaper the price, the better the quality, the greater the accessibility.

Heroes & Monuments

Trump – Build new monuments to great American heroes (instead of tearing them down.)

Scott – Stop canceling our founding fathers and start celebrating them for the geniuses that they were.

Homelessness

Trump – Clean out homeless camps from our inner cities.

Suarez – At one point Miami peaked with over 6,000 homeless, but today we’re down to 608. We found success through a holistic approach that former President George H.W Bush called a thousand Points of Light which emanate from private initiatives like Hermanos in Miami who have placed, just in the last two years, a thousand homeless straight into supportive permanent housing. We’ve put forth a program called functional zero with the goal to end chronic homelessness just like we ended veteran homelessness.

West – I don’t want to chip away at homelessness. I want to abolish homelessness.

Immigration, Border

Biden – Pass comprehensive immigration reform, at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border.

Make a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, those on temporary status, farm workers and essential workers.

Trump – Seal the southern border and expand the wall even more.

Implement massive increase in border patrol and the number of ice and border agents.

Implement largest domestic deportation operation in history.

Bring back a strong “remain in Mexico” policy.

Ask every state and federal agency to identify every known or suspected gang member and America, and everyone who is here illegally, pack them up and deliver back to their country of origin.

Haley – Stop the surge of drugs and immigration through “real” border and mandatory e-verify (like we got done in South Carolina)

Businesses must hire Americans, not illegals.

DeSantis – Shut down the Border. Construct the border wall and hold the drug cartels accountable.

Scott – Stop retreating from our Southern border. If you don’t control your back door. it’s not your house. If our Southern border is unsafe and insecure it’s not our country.

Pence – Defend our nation and secure our border.

Hurd – When I was in Congress, I had an A rating from the National Rifle Association and received support – When it comes to our border security the first step is to stop a policy that actually started under Donald Trump that Joe Biden continued – we have to stop treating everybody as if they’re an asylum seeker. Asylum is very specific. You have to be part of protected class. You have to be targeted by being part of that protected class. We have got to stop doing that. That is what’s causing so many people to want to try to come here illegally in between our ports of entry. We also need to streamline legal immigration. This is something that unfortunately President Biden doesn’t want to do because big labor and unions do not want to see robust guest worker program. Then we have to address root causes in those countries where, historically, we’ve seen most of the illegal immigration come from. It’s a fraction of the cost to solve the problem there, before it gets to our borders. These are three things that could be done fairly quickly.

Hutchinson – I have 3 words that will work to protect our country from the human suffering that results from an open border, and that is “enforce the law.” Our nation is the land of immigrants who make up the fabric of our democracy. And in order to respect those who follow the legal path to come to this country, we must reform our asylum laws, devote more resources to support the border patrol, and quickly remove those who come into our country illegally.

Ramaswamy – What does it mean to be American? It means the people who get into this country should be more people like my parents who came to this country through the front door, paid their taxes, followed the rules, raised two kids both of whom went on to found companies that helped thousands of Americans. We should want more immigrants like them. But – I say this as a first-generation immigrant — we should without apology close the door on people whose first act of entering this country is a law breaking one. We need merit in who gets into this country. I will not apologize for that. That is not racist. That is reality.

Elder – I think the borders need to be stronger. I think Trump did a fantastic job as president on the borders, and I’m going to continue those policies. I would reimpose the policies that gave us the most secure border we ever had until Joe Biden undid all those policies. I would put back “Stay in Mexico,” stop “Catch and Release. ” Arrest people who are here who crossed the border, because when you arrest them you can deport them. Once you put them in the interior, which is what we’re doing right now, good luck trying to get them out again. The people that are most hurt by illegal immigration are black and brown people living in the inner city. According to a study done by the Civil Rights Commission, a million more black people would have jobs if it weren’t for illegal alien labor.

West – You got to treat each immigrant with dignity. I want the immigrants and the workers of all colors to come together against the bosses. That’s a radical difference between right-wing populists and highly left-oriented people in love with poor working people no matter what color.

LGBTQ

Biden – Pass the equality act to ensure LGBTQ Americans, especially transgender young people, can live with safety and dignity.

Trump – Defeat the cult of gender ideology and reassert that God created two genders, male and female.

Call for a bill ending “child sexual mutilation” in all 50 states.

Keep men out of women’s sports.

Burgum – The states, not the federal government, should be the ones to decide about gender affirming care.

Mental Health

Suarez – We cannot totally solve homelessness until we face our national mental health epidemic. From mass shootings, to addiction and homelessness, we need to address mental health and critical care with new and innovative approaches that help people build the skills to avoid crisis.

Hurd – The U.S. does not have the mental-health resources-the facilities, staff, and training programs-throughout our communities that can identify, assess, and address the mental-health issues that may contribute to the evolution of a disturbed individual into a mass killer. Mental health is health. Only by investing in mental-health infrastructure, as we do in our health services, can we offer support to individuals in need. And this would give us greater capability to intervene before people’s struggles and crises manifest in violent actions.

Military & Veterans

Biden – Care for our military personnel and their families when they come home. Job training and job placement for veterans and their spouses as they return to civilian life. Helping veterans afford their rent because no one should be homeless in America, especially someone who served the country.

Haley – Make armed forces stronger and more capable than ever.

DeSantis – Eliminate ideological agendas such as global warming and gender ideology from our military. Focus the military on the core Mission and reverse the poor military recruiting trends.

Scott – Rebuild a military so lethal and Powerful that our adversaries will fear us and our allies will respect us.

Make sure our service members have every tool they need.

Make sure our veterans have every resource they deserve.

Not try to be the world’s police, but always defend America’s national vital interests and our people wherever they are.

Pence – We will rebuild our military and make it fitted to the times to defend our freedom. In an ever more turbulent world, we will end political correctness at the Pentagon, and we will give our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coast guard the support they need to defend this nation and come home safe.

Kennedy – We have 800 bases around the world now. We spend 800 billion dollars a year on our military. We were supposed to get a peace dividend after the Soviet Union collapsed. We were supposed to go from 6 billion to 2 billion. Then we were going to spend the rest and build schools and infrastructure. Instead we’ve made up a bunch of foreign enemies. Instead of dropping to two, we raised it to eight.

Our entire strategy in the Mideast has utterly collapsed and our economy is going to follow if we don’t do something fast and I’m going to bring the troops home and I am going to start I’m going to close the bases and I’m going to start investing in the United States middle class in our country and I’m going to make us an exemplary democracy.

Hurd – I’ll put our American Security and prosperity first.

Hutchinson – There are some who want the United States to disengage from the world and to isolate ourselves. Isolationism only leads to weakness and weakness leads to war. Americans want peace, and the best way to secure and preserve peace is to have the most prepared military in the world.

West – I’m calling for the demilitarizing of U.S foreign policy, the demilitarizing of U.S Imperial policy.

People in need

Kennedy – My father when he came back one time from the Delta, we were all at the dinner table when he came in, and he said, “I was in a tar paper Shack today that was smaller than this dining room and there were two families living there and the children get one meal a day. When you get older, I want you to help those people. These are your people.” “These are Kennedy people,” he said. “The other people, the big shots, the corporations, the millionaires don’t need the Kennedys. They have lobbyists. They have PR firms. They have lawyers,” he said, “These are people you need to spend your life helping.” When I’m president, I’m going to be president for those people.

Williamson – Those of us who live on that island of 20% of Americans for whom things are basically good are surrounded by a vast sea of economic anxiety and despair. We don’t need any more evidence that this system is intrinsically corrupt. We can see it in the broken windows, we can see it in shuttered factories, we can see it in the addiction and the brokenness of our fellow citizens. We can see it in the despair. We can see it in the anxiety. We can see it in the depression. Half the people in this city don’t even notice it. They are so buffered from the ravages of human suffering they don’t even mention the word “poor.” They don’t even mention the word poverty, much less address its deeper causes. So some people in this city just don’t even seem to care. Some people in this city — with some very brave exceptions — apparently don’t have the spine or the moral courage to fix it. Ladies and gentlemen, let me in there – I will.

West – We need decent housing, quality education, the basic social needs. I am calling for the abolition of poverty. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified not because he hated money changers; he hated greed. He had a deep love for the least of these. We need that spirit translated into our public life. Translated into our public — politics. I have a moral commitment first and foremost to poor people and working people of any color, any religion, any sexual orientation. Why? Because they have been left out.

In the last couple of years, we haven’t had voices on the inside that have in any way tried to speak to poor and working people. So, I decided to do what I could to become head of the American empire in order to dismantle the American empire and empower poor and working people around the world. I’m going inside in order to dismantle, to ensure that those resources available there can be made much more available to poor and working people.

Police, FBI, Crime, Violence

Biden – Triple the anti-fraud strike force going after these criminals, double the statute of limitations on these crimes, and crack down on identity fraud by criminal syndicates.

Prevent violence:

Give law enforcement the real training they need, hold them to higher standards, help them succeed in keeping us safe.
More first responders and professionals to address growing mental health and substance abuse challenges.
More resources to reduce violent crime and gun crime.
More community intervention programs.
More investments in housing, education and job training.

Haley – Make sure Police know we have their backs and criminals know we have their number.

DeSantis – Reject attacks on the men and women of law enforcement.

Scott – Back the blue, secure our streets, and finally make it a federal crime to kill ambush or assault a cop in this country.

Suarez – In Miami we chose to increase funding for our police while other cities defunded them. The result is Miami now has the lowest per capita murder rate since 1964…From president to Mayor, we must stand up for our police who have the hardest job in America.

Hutchinson – What separates the United States from the rest of the world is our commitment to justice. The rule of law is the foundation for peace in our communities. I am the only candidate running for president with a breadth of experience in law enforcement. I will enforce the law and demand that local prosecutors do the same. Lawbreakers must be held accountable…

There are a few misguided leaders who say we should defund law enforcement. We should defund the FBI. I am here today in support of our law enforcement heroes. The argument to defund police is designed to undermine our rule of law. We should not defund the police. We should not defund the FBI. But we do need serious reform to refocus the core functions of our federal law enforcement. We must make them more focused, more accountable, and successful in protecting our citizens. The FBI needs to be trimmed down and focused on its number one duty: leading our counterterrorism mission.

Elder – I denounce this Democrat gambit of saying that the country is systemically racist. It is a murderous lie. It has caused “The George Floyd effect.” This is the phenomenon of cops pulling back for fear of being called racist. As a result, crime has gone up all over the country. There are literally thousands of people who’ve been victimized by violent crime who otherwise would not have been victimized had the police been doing their normal proactive policing. The people that are primarily victimized by this excess crime are the very black and brown people living in the inner city that the people on the left purport to care about.

West – Brother Martin used to say that the bombs that we drop abroad land at home. The militarism around the world comes back to haunt us. We’ve got police departments that are militarized. You have to break the back of the culture of silence of the police departments that think they can get away with mistreating, brutalizing, sometimes murdering fellow citizens. As you know those fellow citizens are disproportionately black and brown, but it includes all colors in terms of police murders every year. As president you’ve got to use whatever charisma, whatever language, whatever eloquence you can to try to ensure that you set an atmosphere such that mechanisms of accountability are in place not just in police departments but at the workplace. Not just at the workplace, but in our cultural life.

I don’t want to chip away at mass incarceration reform. I want to abolish forms of injustice that incarcerate people as if they’re animals. There are ways of dealing with murderers, and rapists, and so forth, things that are criminal. I’d be the first to acknowledge that, but there’s ways of dealing with them. We can learn from Finland. We can learn from Denmark. We can learn from Sweden on how you rehabilitate persons.

Race/Racism

Elder – I am going to give a full-throated denunciation of that narrative that the Democrats push all the time that America is systemically racist. It is a lie. It’s pitting us against each other. Racism has never been a less important factor in American Life. This is the only majority white country that has elected and re-elected a Black president.

West – Racism is still operating. It is not as intense as it was 75 years ago but it’s still there in so many different ways… Keep in mind, we are never solely victims. I come from a Black people who have produced some of the greatest warriors and freedom fighters in the face of overwhelming trauma, overwhelming terror.

Regulations

Pence – We will give the American people freedom from excessive federal regulations and get back to repealing two federal regulations for every new rule that we put on the books.

Elder – I think Trump did a fantastic job as president on taxes, on regulations, and I’m going to continue those policies. We’re over-taxed, we’re over-regulated. I would reduce taxes. I would reduce regulation.

Taxes

Biden – Proposal for the billionaire minimum tax. “There’s 1,000 billionaires in America, up from about 600 at the beginning of my term. No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a schoolteacher or a firefighter. “

Quadruple the tax on corporate stock buybacks to encourage long-term investments.

Close the loopholes that allow the very wealthy to avoid paying their taxes.

Pence – We’ll champion lower taxes. We’ll extend the historic tax relief of the Trump/Pence administration.

Suarez – In Miami we chose to cut our taxes to their lowest rate ever.

Ukraine

Biden – Stand with Ukraine as long as it takes.

Trump – Settle war between Russia and Ukraine. Prevent World War III.

Haley – Stand with our allies from Israel to Ukraine and stand up to our enemies in Iran and Russa.

Christie – Putin is a thug. The war in Ukraine is an act of dictatorial aggression. If you don’t think Putin is as bad as Hitler, you’re wrong because Putin kills his own people in his own country based on their religious views, based on their political views, based on anything that disagrees with him. We have to stand up to this. America’s greatness comes from its friendships. We have to stand up for our friends.

Pence – Russia invaded and waged war on a sovereign nation killing hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians. Its army targeted and destroyed hospitals and schools and left cities in rubble. A year ago Karen and I stood on the Ukraine/Poland border. We went into a relief center and spoke with and embraced heartbroken families who were fleeing the violence. I promise you I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal. I know the difference between a territorial dispute and a war of aggression. The war in Ukraine is not our war, but freedom is our fight, and America must always stand for freedom. When I’m your President we will.

Kennedy – We need to have a national conversation about this war (in Ukraine). We need to have a mature conversation that allows for nuance and that allows for complexity, and we need to do it respectfully. The number one issue that we need to talk about is, is this war in the U.S. national interest. We just need to isolate that question. Leading diplomats …Henry Kissinger, Jack Matlock, Larry Wilkinson … they all have said definitively, if you just want to ask if it is in our national interest, it is not it is not in America’s national interest to push Russia closer to China. That is a cataclysm. Number two, it’s not in our national interest to do something that could involve us in a nuclear exchange with a country that has more nuclear weapons than us.

Having said that I want to say that we are in the Ukraine for all the right reasons. We are there because we are a good people. I think that we need to know as Americans and we have a right to know what is our government’s Chief objective in this war. Now we were told initially at the objective was humanitarian and that is a good reason to be there. What that means is trying to end the bloodshed and minimize it as much as possible. But in recent times President Biden said that one of our objectives is regime change of Vladimir Putin. This is the same strategy that did not work for well for us in Iraq.

I want to talk just a little about some of the costs of the war. We’ve now committed a hundred and thirteen billion dollars to the Ukraine. For reference, the entire budget of EPA is 12 billion the budget of CDC is 11 billion. 57% of Americans cannot put their hand on a thousand dollars if they have an emergency. One quarter of Americans go to bed hungry. We have 1.5 million veterans who are living below the poverty line. We have 33, 000 veterans who are homeless. We have 23 veterans a day who are killing themselves. We have money for wars and we have money for bankers that need bailouts. What happens to the American people when they are on Hard Times. Shouldn’t we have compassion for them? We are cutting American people off from the from the kind of aid that we should be giving that we’re instead spending on being the policemen of the world.

Hutchinson – Today’s threat is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I join with those who say we don’t want an unending war in Ukraine, and the best way to avoid a long war is to help Ukraine win today.

Ramaswamy – I would not send another dollar to Ukraine. I just wouldn’t. I would say it’s already been too much, but I wouldn’t give another dollar to them. I would actually focus on solving the cartel problem.

West – We have to be sensitive with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, but also self – critical. Gorbachev was promised NATO would not move one inch, and now, two decades later, 13 former Soviet countries are part of NATO with missiles targeted at Russia. If Russia had missiles in Mexico and Canada, what would the U.S. government do? Probably blow them to smithereens. That’s how empires behave. We are just being truthful. That’s not anti-American. That’s the truth about empires. The worst of America is greed, hatred, and thinking that we’re #1. The best of America is love, justice, and being willing to live in the world as a nation among nations.

So, we’ve got to be in solidarity with the suffering of Ukrainian brothers and sisters, but we have to recognize NATO is not neutral, it is an instrument of American imperial foreign policy. We’re witnessing a proxy war. There must be a ceasefire. There must be a stopping of that war. We’re on the road to nuclear war. That’s the last thing we want to see.

I would pull back on the U.S military support. I would sit down with the elites from the Chinese Empire, given all of their forms of regimentation and repression in their own context, but I would sit down with the Chinese. I would sit down with the Ukrainians. I would sit down with the Russians. I would say we’re going to stop this war, and we’re going to come up with a plan, a process with a variety of voices heard to make sure that the suffering stops, and we understand and we’re honest about the larger context of the war.

Voting, Elections

Biden – Protect the right to vote, not suppress that, fundamental right. Honor the results of our elections, not subvert the will of the people. Uphold the rule of the law and restore trust in our institutions of democracy.

Trump – Fully secure our elections. Goal will be one day voting with all paper ballots.

Haley – Improve confidence in elections – Voter ID will be the law of the land (like we have in South Carolina).

Ramaswamy – I think we have a long way to go in full election Integrity in this country. I think the fact that voter ID laws would be rejected as racist tells you everything you need to know. We’ve come to this perverse place in America where if they’re calling you a racist for something that has nothing to do with race, it means you’re probably right over the flame and need to stay right on top of it because it’s just a deflection tactic to scare you off.

West – I don’t think the election was stolen, not at all. I don’t think our electoral process is perfect. I think we need to struggle for more election integrity because of the role of big money in our elections. We don’t get high quality candidates because oftentimes you have to have ties to big benefactors and big donors and big providers in order to even run for office. The two-party system does not allow the voices of working people to be heard. The politicians are already bought, captive or so deeply tied to big money.

Work, Labor, Unions, Employment

Biden – Pass the PRO Act, because workers have a right to form a union.

Scott – Motivate, Inspire, and require every able-bodied citizen to take responsibility and go to work.

Suarez – In Miami, we built a booming Tech economy that has generated high paying jobs with the lowest unemployment rate in the United States of America.

Hutchinson – We must once again embrace the dignity of work. Our federal government should not reward those who sit at home when they have the ability to work and provide for themselves. As president, I will open doors for more worker training and better pay. And we will require work for able bodied welfare recipients. This will grow our manufacturing workforce and we will prove that we can still make things and manufacture things in the United States of America.

An important solution to this challenge is lifting the penalty for those who want to stay in the workforce after the age of 62. Right now, if you retire on Social Security, you are penalized for continuing to work, you should be able to both claim Social Security and work. Remove the penalties and let those who want to work continue to do so without government penalties. Right now we have nearly 10 million job openings in the US and by making this change, we will add 1,000,000 to the labor pool and increase the income of retirees at the same time.

West – We need jobs with a living wage. I’m calling for strong trade union movements.