GOP Presidential Candidates’ Policies Will Hurt Everyday Americans
Today is a big day for the Republican primary, with hundreds of delegates up for grabs in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, and Missouri. Donald Trump, the real estate mogul with a penchant for offensive statements, is the current favorite to sweep most of the “Super Duper Tuesday” states, with the possible exception of Gov. John Kasich’s home state of Ohio. Regardless of which GOP candidate secures the most delegates tonight and, eventually the GOP nomination, all of them—Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Gov. John Kasich—support policies that will hurt everyday Americans. In honor of Super Duper Tuesday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released a national GOP Study Guide so everyone can study up. Here are a few examples of how the GOP presidential candidates’ policies hurt Americans:
- Deny climate science: 2015 was the warmest year on record. Still, all of the current GOP presidential candidates question or deny that humans are contributing to climate change. As a result, the candidates’ energy plans promote dirty energy sources and fail to address global warming. Donald Trump, the GOP presidential frontrunner, has even claimed that climate change is a “hoax.”
- Redistribute wealth to the top 1 percent, at the expense of family economic security: Working families in the United States are feeling increasingly squeezed by rising costs and stagnating wages. From 2000 to 2012, the main costs associated with supporting a family — health care, child care, college tuition, housing, and retirement costs — have increased $10,600, on average. And quality child care now costs more than the median rent in every state. Families need policies like guaranteed paid sick days, guaranteed paid leave, equal pay, and improved access to quality, affordable childcare to thrive. But the GOP presidential candidates have failed to address the drivers of family economic insecurity and all of the contenders oppose comprehensive paid leave legislation and oppose raising the federal minimum wage. Instead the Republican presidential candidates are proposing trickle-down tax plans that only make the income gap worse and hinder economic growth. The party’s front-runner, Donald Trump, has even claimed that wages are too high.
- Erode public education: The nation’s public education system is seeing dramatic gains: the graduation rate reached an all-time high in 2015 and the drop-out rate fell. However, serious achievement gaps remain between white and minority students and affluent and low-income students. And the GOP presidential hopefuls would only make those gaps worse by pushing for dramatic cuts to federal education funding targeted for at-risk students and making college more affordable. For instance, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have called for the elimination of the Department of Education — which means 8 million college students could lose their Pell grants and thousands more could be denied federal civil rights protections.
For more on the GOP candidates impact on everyday Americans—especially when it comes to health care, immigration policies, and gun safety, check out our GOP Study Guide.
BOTTOM LINE: Everyday Americans deserve better policies than those the GOP presidential candidates have proposed. Instead of supporting policies that would help us progress further, all of the GOP presidential candidates have laid out harmful policies on a range of issues from education to the economy—none of them has proposed anything that would actually make America great.
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