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Trump Talks.  Biden-Harris Delivers.

"I didn’t back down from my promises – and I’ve kept every single one."
— Mr. Trump, Republican Convention, Aug. 2020

There are talkers, like Mr. Trump, and there are doers, like President Biden and Vice President Harris.  Trump promises, and then says he delivers when he hasn’t.

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Trump talks. The Biden-Harris Team delivers.

Economic Growth

Trump Talks — He promised 4% growth per year:

  • But even in his best year, 2018, he only managed 2.9% after a massive tax giveaway to corporations and the rich. 

  • In 2019 growth fell to 2.3 percent; the tax giveaways were a bust. 

  • Growth averaged 2.6% during Trump’s first three years.

  • During the pandemic in 2020 there was negative growth at minus -2.8 percent.

Biden- Harris Delivers —

  • The economy has grown 22% under Biden-Harris, compared to 14% for Trump. 

  • Growth averaged 3.4% in Biden-Harris’s first three years, while Trump managed 2.6% in his first three before the pandemic.

  • Such growth is the strongest among other developed countries in the G7 by far.

Jobs

Trump Talks — 

  • In 2016 Trump promised that his plan would create 25 million jobs in 10 years. 

  • But when he left office there were fewer jobs in the country than when he started.

Biden-Harris Delivers —

“We’ll create millions of jobs …” — Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris, Aug. 12, 2020

  •  14 million jobs and counting have been created on Biden-Harris’s watch. 

  • Biden-Harris beats Trump every year on job creation, even excluding 2020 when the pandemic hit. 

  • Such a wealth of jobs has led to low unemployment during the Biden-Harris Administration and the longest stretch of unemployment below 4% in over 50 years.

  • This includes the lowest unemployment numbers in history for Hispanics, Blacks, and persons with disabilities.

  • Melissa Calderon, President/CEO of Prosperity Now notes that the continued increase in healthcare, professional and business services, and retail and social assistance “are a blueprint for eliminating the country’s racial and ethnic income inequality.”

  • This long stretch of low unemployment has led to wage increases for the average worker, adding $1,400 to the yearly family budget.

Manufacturing

Trump Talks — 

Trump promised to bring back manufacturing.

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  • “We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth, and we will bring back our dreams.” —  Inaugural Address, 2017

  • But his trade wars led to the Federal Reserve declaring a “technical recession” in 2019 for the sector, well before the pandemic created many more losses.

  • Beginning in early 2019, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania experienced a downward slide of manufacturing jobs.

  • This led the way for even greater losses during the mishandled pandemic, when these states lost 20,000-40,000 manufacturing jobs.

Biden-Harris Delivers —

  • The Biden-Harris economy has added 800,000 manufacturing jobs.

  • This includes a manufacturing jobs comeback after a recession has been the biggest in over 50 years.

  • Biden-Harris policy victories — the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act — have all contributed to this manufacturing resurgence, with much more to come.

  • Due to these policies, manufacturers have invested $220 billion over the last 18 months in construction.  Car parts, construction materials, and computer chips will now be made in the USA instead of in foreign countries, creating a wealth of new manufacturing jobs right here.

Healthcare

Trump Talks — 

Mr. Trump has made some wild promises and claims about healthcare, centered around himself, boasting only he can do it.

  

  • “I am going to take care of everybody… the government's gonna pay for it.” — 60 Minutes interview, Sept. 2015

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  • “My first day in office, I am going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability.  You're going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost. And it's going to be so easy.” — Oct. 25, 2016

  • “If we don’t repeal and replace Obamacare, we will destroy health care in America” — Nov. 1, 2016

  • “We’re signing a health-care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health-care plan” — July 19, 2020

  • “We’re going to be doing a very inclusive health-care plan. I’ll be signing it sometime very soon” …“Might be Sunday. But it’s going to be very soon.” — July 31, 2020

  • “I will come up with a much better, and less expensive, alternative!  People will be happy, not sad!” — Dec. 25, 2023

  • “We’re going to fight for much better health care than Obamacare. Obamacare is a catastrophe,” — Jan. 6, 2024

 

Thankfully all of Mr. Trump’s boasts about replacing Obamacare never came to pass.  That’s because the 2017 Republican alternative to Obamacare would have resulted in 32 million uninsured within a decade.  As it was, Mr. Trump and his team did what they could to destroy Obamacare, including gutting programs to help people navigate the marketplace and find insurance and allowing dishonest outfits to sell bogus plans.  The result if fully implemented? Chaos and instability in the healthcare system.

Biden-Harris Delivers —

The Biden-Harris team promised to strengthen Obamacare, and that’s exactly what they’ve done, as part of their victories with the passage of the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, making coverage much more affordable and stable.  This has led to:

 

  • the greatest percentage of people covered in our nation’s history, approximately 93 percent at the end of 2022 (the latest year for which there is data);

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  • a 9 million surge in enrollments for health coverage, from 12 million at the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration to over 21 million in January 2024;

  • four out of five people on the Healthcare Marketplace being able to find a plan for less than $10 a month, and over 90% having three or more options from which to choose;

  • working families saving an average of $800 per person a year thanks to health care subsidies provided by Biden-Harris legislative victories;

  • over 8 million being freed from struggling with medical debt;

  • Insulin costs being capped at $35 per month for seniors on Medicare, saving an average of $500 per year;

  • winning the ability for the government to negotiate with drug companies to lower drug prices for the first time.

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Vice President Harris, once elected, will continue to defend your loved ones from the chaotic healthcare future of a second Trump presidency as well as efforts by MAGA Trumpian members of Congress to tear down Obamacare.  Her hard work on healthcare is for us.

Infrastructure

Trump Talks — 

Trump Talks —

 

  • Trump made all kinds of big promises on rebuilding our country’s infrastructure, saying during the campaign we would spend up to $1 trillion; that became $2 trillion once in office.

  • “We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways all across our land. And we will do it with American heart, and American hands, and American grit.”

  • But he failed to get his gleaming infrastructure package through Congress.

  • Trump and his aides brought up infrastructure so much that “Infrastructure Week” became synonymous with big Trumpian plans that went nowhere.

Biden Delivers —

  • The Biden-Harris team championed and the President signed the largest infrastructure deal in decades, investing over $1 trillion, with historic funding for many aspects, and he did it with broad bipartisan support — something the naysayers said was no longer possible in our partisan age.

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  • This Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is:

    • fixing our roads and bridges;

    • helping to ease inflation caused from snarled supply chains by fixing our ports, airports, and rails;

    • updating the electrician grid to ensure reliability and its ability to handle more clean energy from solar and wind;

    • expanding access to clean drinking water;

    • ensuring that everyone has access to high-speed Internet;

    • building charging stations across the country for electric vehicles.

Pandemic Management

Trump Talks — 

Trump Talks —

 

In his 2016 Convention acceptance speech Mr. Trump made up or exaggerated problems and then said “I alone can fix it.”  But when lives are on the line, when science demands action, when a deadly worldwide crisis arose, Trump failed.

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When it came to a real problem like the pandemic, Trump:

  • denied its reality,

  • then downplayed and lied about its severity,

  • failed to implement an adequate testing program and told his Administration to slow down testing because it revealed more cases,

  • shoved responsibility onto Governors and then urged people to defy their efforts,

  • refused to wear a mask, a vital life-saving measure, and disparaged those who did, because it would reveal he wore make-up,

  • speculated about injecting a disinfectant into the body, and peddled bogus and dangerous snake-oil cures such as hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine,

  • blamed others instead of taking responsibility, and

  • did the exact opposite of what history teaches a leader should do in a pandemic: tell the truth and quickly correct mistakes; act urgently and decisively; employ simple but effective measures to reduce the spread like mask wearing and social distancing.

All of this leads to one simple conclusion: Trump was the worst leader we could have had as president during the pandemic.  Chaos reigned.  450,000 died on his watch from COVID.  

Trump’s pandemic dereliction cost many lives.  If our response had been like that of other major developed countries in the G7, we would have seen 40% fewer deaths — 180,000 people. 

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Biden- Harris Delivers —

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Strong Pandemic Leadership 

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  • 86% of people 6 and up received the vaccine by the end of the pandemic, with 95% of our most vulnerable population, seniors, vaccinated — even in the face of stiff resistance by MAGA vaccine deniers.

  • Delivered over 1.6 billion free COVID tests to the American people.

  • Used the Defense Production Act over 100 times to fix medical supply issues.

  • Schools and businesses were reopened safely, and helped over 200,000 child care facilities stay open.

  • Eliminated the gap in survival rates between ethnic groups with a hands-on, block-by-block campaign.

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  • The Biden-Harris American Rescue Plan helped bring the economy out of a deep pandemic recession, creating one of the greatest recoveries in history — plentiful jobs, low unemployment, increased wages, and a booming economy.

  • Provided direct economic relief to American families, an extension of unemployment benefits, a temporary expanded Child Tax Credit that lifted over 7 million children out of poverty, and small business loans. 

  • Recognizing that all pandemics are worldwide phenomena, rejoined the World Health Organization after Trump pulled us out, and provided more vaccines to poor countries than all the other major developed countries combined, over 691,000,000 doses.

Creation Care

Trump Talks — 

Trump’s Climate Denial and Opposition to Climate Action 

Trump bragged he alone could fix the nation’s big problems, especially ones he makes up.  But when it came to a real threat like climate change:

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  • he denied its reality, calling it a “hoax”;

  • pulled us out of the Paris Climate Agreement, which is essential to the world’s efforts;

  • gutted EPA’s plans to regulate climate pollution;

  • promised to bring back coal (which, of course, he didn’t do) and railed against clean energy, even falsely claiming that wind energy causes cancer;

  • tried to destroy anything related to climate action across the Executive Branch.

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Climate consequences don’t just stop because you shut your eyes and plug your ears, pining for a past that is fading away instead of creating a cleaner future.  They certainly don’t stop if you champion climate pollution instead of job-creating solutions.  What you get is climate chaos and a failure to create jobs in a growing industry.  Instead of creating clean energy jobs here, they are created elsewhere.

Biden-Harris Delivers —

Biden-Harris’ Historic Climate Change Leadership

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“When President Biden and I took office, we set an ambitious goal.  Yes, people said, ‘That can’t be done.’  We said, ‘Well, you know what? We believe in dreaming with ambition and then seeing it through.” — Vice President Harris, July 14, 2023

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The Biden-Harris team has already achieved the greatest climate action legacy in our history.  But given the speed and scale of the challenge, Kamala Harris knows there is much more work to be done when she is elected president.

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Here are highlights of Biden-Harris accomplishments to date.

  • On track to have the US play its part in keeping warming to around 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, thereby avoiding dangerous interference with the climate system by achieving Net-Zero emissions by 2050.

  • Championed and signed the most consequential climate and clean energy legislation in our history, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which could end up investing over $1 trillion to reduce climate pollution, spurring an additional $3 trillion in business investment, while creating up to 1.5 million good paying jobs.

  • Put our nation on a trajectory to have renewable energy be our #1 source of electricity; it’s already #2, having recently surpassed coal.

  • Finalized a regulation (or rule) on methane pollution, a potent heat-trapping gas, that will cut methane 80%, the equivalent of taking 28 million cars off the roads.

  • Reducing climate pollution from the transportation sector, the #1 source of heat-trapping emissions through the tightest vehicle standards to date, a regulation tying highway funds for states to pollution-reduction goals, and Executive Orders that 50% of all passenger vehicle sales be zero emission vehicles by 2030 and that the federal government procure 100% zero emission vehicles by 2035 and 100% zero emission trucks by 2027.

  • Investing $66 billion in clean public transit, including zero-emission busses, $7.5 billion to build the first-ever national network of EV charging stations, and delivering thousands of electric school buses nationwide through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

  • Rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement and provided indispensable international leadership in rallying the world for meaningful action, e.g., The Global Methane Pledge with 155 countries, and bilateral agreements with China, the world’s #1 emitter.

  • Created numerous ways for average Americans to help the family budget and reduce pollution at the same time by receiving tax credits — up to $2,000 for a heat pump, saving $500 a year on energy bills, up to $1,200 for energy efficiency improvements for doors, windows and insulation; up to $7,500 for a new clean vehicle and $4,000 for a used clean vehicle.

  • Started the American Climate Corps, 20,000 young adults who are tackling the climate crisis, especially in communities left behind.

  • Investing $1 billion to plant trees in Urban areas, especially where there is the greatest need, resulting in the biggest bang for the buck.  Besides soaking up carbon pollution, trees can make neighborhoods up to 10 degrees cooler, reducing deaths from heat stroke, and they trap air pollution, helping to avoid 670,000 acute respiratory attacks.

  • Investing $40 billion to help rural America with climate solutions.

  • Investing $50 billion in helping Americans and our communities become more resilient or better prepared to weather climate impacts, which will continue to grow in strength, severity, and destruction.  This includes elevating roads and bridges due to increased flooding, making the electrical grid more secure and reliable, protecting from hurricanes by restoring coastal buffer zones, building houses to better withstand extreme weather, and managing public lands to withstand wildfires and droughts.

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