Presidential candidate platform breakdown

In order to prepare you as best we can for the upcoming election, The Spectrum has broken down each candidate's platform to help you make an informed decision in the voting booth on Tuesday, Nov. 6.

President Barack Obama platform breakdown

Economy

·      Obama characterizes his economic plan as long-term. He plans to invest in education, small businesses, clean energy and infrastructure.

·      He wants to cut taxes by $3,600 for the average middle class family.

·      He wants to ensure millionaires aren’t paying lower tax rates than middle class families but instead pay the same rate as under President Clinton.

Jobs

·      Under Obama, there were 31 continuous months of job growth. During that time, 5.2 million were added to the private sector, including almost 500,000 manufacturing jobs – the most growth since 1997.

·      He will eliminate tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs overseas and provide incentives for companies to create jobs in America.

·      Obama said he is standing up for American workers and businesses in the global market place by addressing China’s unfair trading practices through a new trade enforcement unit to level the playing field.

·      Signed tax credit laws to encourage businesses to hire unemployed veterans.

Education

·      Obama intends to cut tuition growth in half over the next decade. He wants to double campus-based student aid and give incentives to schools that successfully keep tuition growth down.

·      He capped repayments on federal student loans at 10 percent of income.

·      He has invested $2 billion in community colleges and is proposing new partnerships with community colleges to train workers for already existing jobs.

Foreign Policy

·      Obama has “responsibly ended the war in Iraq” and is bringing troops home from Afghanistan.

·      His plan intends to end the war in Afghanistan by 2014.

·      He will use the savings from ending the war to reduce the deficit and use the rest to “engage in nation-building here at home.” 

·      He gained the support of Russia and China to pass international sanctions against the Iranian government.

·      He consistently stands up for Israel.

Health care

·      Obama added free preventative care to Medicare and closed the “doughnut hole” saving seniors an average of $600 last year.

·      He is stopping insurance company abuses by giving millions of Americans more economic security.

·      He said he has made Medicare more efficient. He found $716 billion in savings by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, and he added eights years to the life of the Medicare Trust Fund.

·      He expanded access to free preventive services like flu shots, diabetes screenings and mammograms for 54 million Americans.

·      He believes women’s health care decisions are best made with their physicians, without politician’s interference.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney platform breakdown

Economy

·      Governor Romney’s remedy to our hurting economy focuses on reducing spending and makes the tax cuts implemented during George W. Bush’s presidency permanent.

·      Romney proposes to lower income tax rates to 20 percent and reduce corporate tax rates to 25 percent.

·      He also plans to cut spending by reducing funding to programs, which include Amtrak, PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities.

·      Romney also vows to cap federal spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and introduce a constitutional amendment that requires a balanced budget.

Jobs

·      Governor Romney believes his five-point plan to revitalize the middle class will increase the amount of jobs in our country and result in more take-home pay.

·      Romney plans to increase access to domestic energy sources, eliminate regulations destroying the coal industry and approve the Keystone XL pipeline that Obama rejected in Jan. 2012.

·      He also plans on giving Americans the skills to succeed – this includes better quality schools and teachers across the country, focusing on job training programs that will build valuable skills in careers with many opportunities and attracting and retaining people with the best skills from around the world.