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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

2016 Presidential Debate: “Achieving Prosperity”

Where the candidates stand:

Jobs

Tepid income growth and shrinking opportunities for blue-collar workers have kept many Americans anxious about jobs and the economy, seven years after the Great Recession ended.

The unemployment rate has fallen to a relatively low 4.9 percent. But many Americans are struggling to keep up with an economy that has been fundamentally transformed since the recession, and is very different from the one their parents experienced.

Trump wants to spur more job creation by reducing regulations and cutting taxes to encourage businesses to expand and hire more.

He also says badly negotiated free trade agreements have cost millions of manufacturing jobs. He promises to bring those jobs back by renegotiating the NAFTA agreement with Canada and Mexico, withdrawing from a proposed Pacific trade pact with 11 other nations, and pushing China to let its currency float freely on international markets.

Clinton has promised to spend $275 billion upgrading roads, tunnels and modern infrastructure such as broadband Internet, to create more construction and engineering jobs. Trump has said in interviews he would spend twice as much.

Said Clinton, “Throughout this campaign, I’ve said that creating good-paying jobs and raising incomes is the defining economic challenge of our time, and that in order to get where I want us to go, we need growth that is strong, fair and long-term.”

Said Trump, “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that.”

Minimum wage

Modest income gains, strikes by fast-food workers, the rapid growth of low-paying jobs while middle-income work shrinks – these factors have combined to make the minimum wage a top economic issue for the 2016 campaign.

Millions would benefit from higher pay, of course. But an increase in the minimum wage would also boost costs for employers and may slow hiring.

The typical household’s income has fallen 2.4 percent since 1999. Low-paying industries, such as retail, fast food and home health care aides, are among the largest and fastest-growing.

Clinton supports raising the minimum wage at least to $12 an hour, even higher at state and local levels.

Trump has said he supports an increase to $10, but thinks states should “really call the shots.” The federal minimum wage now is $7.25.

Wall Street regulation

The debate over rules governing banks and the markets comes down to this: how to prevent another economic catastrophe like the Great Recession ignited by the financial crisis in 2008. The worst upheaval since the 1930s Depression wiped out $11 trillion in U.S. household wealth and about 8 million jobs. More than 5 million families lost their homes to foreclosure.

The goal behind the most radical overhaul of financial rules since the 1930s was to rein in high-risk practices on Wall Street and prevent another multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of banks. In the package of rules Congress enacted in 2010, regulators gained new tools to shut banks without resorting to bailouts. Risky lending was restricted and a new federal agency was charged with protecting consumers from deceptive marketing of financial products.

Republicans and many in the business community say the restrictions have raised costs for banks, especially smaller ones. They want the overhaul law repealed.

Trump calls it a “disaster,” saying he would dismantle most of it.

Clinton says the financial rules should be preserved and strengthened.

Tuition

Trump is threatening to cut off certain federal funding to colleges that fail to work to curb soaring tuition costs.

He recently told a crowd, “one of the biggest problems facing young people and families today is the cost of college education.”

To rein in costs, he says he wants to work with Congress to make sure colleges only get access to certain federal tax breaks and other benefits if they “make good-faith efforts to reduce the cost of college and student debt.”

Clinton has said she wants in-state tuition at public colleges and universities to be free for students from households earning less than $125,000 a year.

She said, “I want everyone to be able to refinance your student loans so you never have to pay more than you can afford.”

Sources: Associated Press and The Washington Post