ISSUES AND ANSWERS:

Facts, not opinions, may help undecided voters.

The debates are over. Thank God. It’s two weeks and two days until the election.

When the process began 18 months ago, American voters both Republican and Democrat, made it clear they have had enough of political corruption. Americans want change. They want a non-establishment President. At least that’s what they say.

Two groups of people are trained in debate: politicians and lawyers.

If you want a non-establishment President, you do not want a politician or a lawyer because most politicians are also lawyers, and most lawyers are taught to be politicians whether they run for office or not.

Donald Trump is neither. It’s why he’s so popular with those who understand the value of capitalism and the evils of socialism. He especially understands the lawlessness of crony-capitalism (which has replaced real capitalism in America).

Since the above statements are factual, why are people critical of Trump’s debate performance? He is not a trained debater… he hasn’t been taught to avoid direct answers to direct questions. Saying you want a non-establishment candidate who is a trained debater is like saying “I want roast beef for dinner but it must come from a chicken.”

The fact that this hugely successful businessman has defeated 15 debate-trained primary candidates and has held his own and even won against a woman who has been debating for 30 years or more attests to Trump’s intelligence and his ability to learn a totally new lifestyle quickly and well.

This is my final article before the election and I hope the following information will be helpful to voters. These are the issues and candidate positions as I understand them to be:

• If you believe it’s okay for a baby to be aborted up until the moment of birth, Hillary agrees; Donald Trump disagrees. There have been 53 million abortions in America since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision making abortion legal. Abortion is not being used as a woman’s choice; it’s being used as birth control. “Choice” occurs when a woman decides to whether or not to remove her panties. It is beyond that moment of “choice” pregnancy occurs.

Though Trump personally opposes abortion, he wants individual states to decide whether abortion is legal. He will appoint to the Supreme Court Justices who will help him achieve this objective.

Those who say “the health of the mother” justifies late-term abortion ignore medical reports stating the health of the mother never justifies late-term abortion because doctors say a caesarian section can be performed to save the mother. They ignore the fact that “health of the mother” has come to mean if, after nine months of pregnancy the idea of having the baby depresses the mother, it places her mental health in danger and she qualifies for a late-term abortion.

• If you want open borders – anyone can enter the U.S. (and Canada) from Mexico and Canada – Hillary agrees; Donald Trump will build a wall and strongly disagrees. As Hillary said in a Wall Street speech, she wants the entire Western Hemisphere to have open borders. It could allow up to 600 million immigrants to enter the United States.

Donald Trump says borders define a nation – and he is correct. To be accepted by the rest of the world as a nation, a “nation” must have four things in place: 1) a defined territory (borders), 2) a defined population, 3) military strength sufficient to defend the territory and the people, and it must 4) control of a system of finance that supports the people and the military. If any of those four things are missing, a mass of land with people living on it may call itself a nation but by the international definition of “nation” it is not. This creates all kinds of Treaty and trade problems, by the way.

• If you want a strong military, Donald Trump agrees. He would increase the size and strength of the military which the Obama Administration has weakened to World War II levels. Trump is a conservative who doesn’t want military involvement all around the world and wants payment from nations we agree to defend. It is neo-conservatism (the Bush cabal) that supports invasion accompanied by nation building.

Hillary Clinton opposes strengthening the military and would continue existing Obama administration military policies. I believe a nation is more likely to be attacked when its ability to defend itself is weak, rather than strong. History says we are safer with a strong military.

• If you want Supreme Court Justices appointed (the next President will likely appoint three or four) who support abortion, the federal takeover of education, who will make gun ownership more difficult (if not impossible), who support legislating from the bench and do not support the power of the three branches of American government (legislative, executive and judicial), Hillary is your candidate. Those who support the Constitution which gives the power of legislating to the Congress, not the Supremes and other courts, Donald Trump agrees with you.

Trump believes in the Constitution as written by the founding fathers, not as written by Supreme Court Justices who want it to reflect their personal “living” opinions. He is endorsed by the NRA and other gun owner groups. He is also endorsed by the Border Patrol, ICE, and many law enforcement groups.

• If you want illegal immigration to continue and if you want to give amnesty to illegal aliens who sneak into American unlawfully, Hillary agrees with you. She wants to let in anyone and everyone. She intends to increase the number of Middle East aliens Obama has allowed in by 550%. She is on record as supporting open borders throughout the Western Hemisphere (remember the North American Union?).

Donald Trump disagrees strongly. He does not support amnesty and would first eliminate sanctuary cities and known illegal alien criminals and then deal with the 20 million illegals who he believes take jobs from American citizens – as did Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Hoover who sent millions of illegals home to protect American jobs. He also believes it is unfair to those trying to enter America legally by delaying their lawful entry because of so many illegals.

Trump believes the billions of dollars of Medicare funds spent annually on illegal aliens who are not citizens diminishes the level of care available to America’s retired citizens and threatens the future of both Social Security and Medicare. He is concerned about the thousands of children who enter America with no adult protection and just disappear. He is right to be concerned. More than 3 million children a year are sold into some form of slavery worldwide. Hillary says she wants to protect children but invites them to enter illegally with no adult protection… an open invitation to child traffickers.

• If you want to pay higher taxes, Hillary will help. Hillary suggests that affluent people do not pay their fair share of taxes. Statistics say that 5% of affluent Americans pay 70% of income taxes. Hillary says all of her costly new programs can be paid by increasing taxes on the very affluent. I have run those numbers and it is not true… big time untrue. Her programs will require a tax increase for the middle class.

Trump’s plan lowers taxes on all individuals as well as corporations. He supports the Reagan theory which very effectively lowered taxes and increased employment (and when employment is increased, the tax base increases because new jobs are created and income taxes that come from the new jobs increase income tax payments to Treasury).

Trump is right about the trillions of dollars that are kept offshore because of America’s high tax rates. If one looks only at the federal income tax rate, it doesn’t make America look like one of the highest taxed nations in the world, as Trump says it is. However, when you add city and state taxes, sales taxes, fees, etc., we definitely are one of the most highly taxed nations in the world.

One of the less discussed facts related to this topic is how people with money (who Hillary wants to over-tax) are the ones who create jobs. Very few poor people, few in the middle class, own growing and thriving businesses that employ people — and 70% of America’s jobs comes from independent businesses.

It takes people with access to cash flow to create jobs and Hillary Clinton’s stand on this subject is dangerous. Sweden found out the hard way what happens when you over-tax the rich. They leave the country and take their money with them. Her plans will cost more jobs and generate less funding for the Treasury Department – which she relies on to pay for “shovel ready infrastructure jobs” she wants to create and to pay for with tax dollars.

• If you support education programs like Common Core and No Child Left Behind, Hillary agrees with you. She believes government should be actively involved in running the public school system and does not believe in school choice or charter schools.

Donald Trump will get rid of Common Core, favors school choice, and believes states and local school boards should choose all subjects taught to their children. The public school system has become largely unionized and appears to serve union bosses with political agendas rather than the educational needs of students. They are strong Hillary supporters.

• To generate taxes for the Treasury, jobs must be created in the private, not the public, sector. Public sector jobs cost tax dollars; private sector jobs provide tax dollars. Hillary Clinton has never created jobs in the private sector. She has created public sector jobs which forces an increase in taxes to pay for them.

Donald Trump has created thousands of private sector jobs. It is true that as an astute businessman he has utilized programs and methods made available by government (which Mrs. Clinton has served for many years and has made no effort to change) that are not popular with the American people… for example, using alien labor when he built a casino. Some people view this as hypocrisy… using Hispanic/Latino labor, some of whom are legal, some of whom are not, to personally profit but saying he wants to send illegals home.

Anyone in business knows it is the responsibility of a CEO to do what the law allows to make a profit for his company. The key words are “the law allows.” Trump wants Latinos to become legal and pay into the tax system, including the Social Security system… which most do not do today. If they get amnesty, they will have access to Social Security and Medicare and it is a threat to the entire Social Security and Medicare systems.

• If you love Obamacare and resultant medical treatment, Hillary is with you all of the way! Actually, Obamacare is a rewrite of Hillarycare. President Bill Clinton put Hillary in charge of creating a national healthcare program in 1992. Hillary will expand Obamacare and move quickly towards a national government healthcare plan similar to the one in Canada… where seriously ill patients who can afford it come to the U.S. for treatment.

Donald Trump prefers to eliminate Obamacare and find a free market solution. He wants to remove barriers that prevent competition – mostly regulations passed by establishment politicians – and he believes competition will bring health care costs down (as it has in the past) and increase quality of care. Market-driven healthcare also removes the concern of government-run euthanasia becoming a part of the American system of healthcare.

TRADE AND TREATIES: If you like NAFTA and our resultant $800 billion trade deficit with treaty partners, Hillary is with you! If you like the millions of manufacturing jobs lost because of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA – then CAFTA and soon the Trans Pacific Partnership Treaty [TPP] which will suck more jobs from our already-ailing economy), Hillary agrees.

Mrs. Clinton had no intention of renegotiating existing trade treaties and, until she needed to solidify a relationship with Bernie Saunders supporters, she thought the TPP was the gold standard of trade agreements. To appease Saunders supporters she now says it may need some adjustments. There is no doubt that our trade treaties have cost America much of its manufacturing base and jobs.

Donald Trump wants to renegotiate existing trade agreements and treaties. He has a clear, business-based (rather than political) view of trade, its impact on business growth and jobs, as well as trade deficits and how they impact the overall economy and our foreign policy. And he understands negotiation better than just about anyone.

The cost to taxpayers of the Obama administration’s foreign policy has been high, indeed. It’s not just the very costly mistakes made by Obama and Clinton in the Middle East. Only this week Philippine President Duterte said in a Beijing speech, “I announce my separation from the United States.” This is a direct result of Obama/Clinton failed foreign policies. This is very serious stuff!

The cost to taxpayers from lost jobs, and a sick GDP (gross domestic product – economic growth) have also been heavy – resulting in an estimated 1% GDP for 2016 (an average weak GDP might be 3%… China’s GDP is currently 6%).

Regarding lost jobs: Hobby Lobby is closing all of its stores thanks to Obama’s policies (and Hillary will continue them). More independent businesses will do the same for other reasons but similar causes: unreasonable and socialist-based business attitudes.

Why is Hobby Lobby closing more than 500 stores in 41 states (and thousands of jobs)? Here is a quote from Hobby Lobby CEO David Green:

“We’re Christians and we run our business on Christian principles.”

“A new government healthcare mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions…”

Such is the tyranny of socialism.

Finally, terrorism. I have only one thing to say on this issue. If you cannot name and clearly define your enemy you will never defeat your enemy. Donald Trump agrees with that concept. Hillary Clinton does not and will continue the Obama policies which have caused such havoc in the Middle East. Her policies and behavior re Benghazi are good examples of her failures.

When I look at the above issues, it is difficult for me to understand how anyone can vote for Hillary Clinton… but we are a diverse nation. My comments support facts, not my personal opinions.

Some of us, it appears, want to become part of George Herbert Walker Bush’s New World Order and give up America’s sovereignty. Some of us have become so dependent upon government we do not want anyone to get rid of political corruption because it might eliminate access to welfare, extended unemployment benefits and freebies like cell phones.

The truth is, when people put selfish desires ahead of the good of their nation, they do indeed deserve the government they get. The rest of us get drug along for the ride.

Think positive thoughts about a Trump victory because positives attract positives. “They” like keeping you in a state of fear and anxiety because such negatives attract more negatives and supports their ruinous plots for internationalizing our nation.

Truth will prevail… eventually. It has already begun… largely because Donald Trump brought so many things to our attention that those polished, debate-trained politicians have been hiding from us so they can continue their corrupt practices.

There’s only one way you can stop it: With your vote.

© 2016 Marilyn M. Barnewall – All Rights Reserved