By Prasanna Tati

2016 Presidential Republican and Democratic Candidate Profiles

Republican candidates

John Kasich
Current Position: Ohio governor
History: Ran for President once before in 2000
Immigration: “If they’ve been law-abiding, then I think they should stay.”
Abortion: “Pro-Life”, but “there are legitimate exceptions on rape, incest, and life of the mother”, tried to defund Planned Parenthood in Ohio
Foreign Policy: “We can’t wait any longer. ISIS must be wiped out.”
Taxes: “We need to cut taxes, and we need to restrain the growth of the government.”
Health care: “I don’t support Obamacare, but I did expand Medicaid.” Thinks Obamacare has made “real improvements in people’s lives.”
Education: “College costs are unbelievably tough, but we’re not going to have free college. That isn’t gonna happen anymore than we’re going to have free Ben and Jerry’s.” “I’m for local control and high standards.”
Crime and Safety: “We love the police, but we’ve got to be responsible to the people in the community.”

Donald Trump
Current Position: Businessman and TV personality
History: Ran for President once before in 2000
Immigration: Will “greatly strengthen our border, making it impenetrable, putting a stop to illegal immigration once and for all.”
Abortion: “I’m pro-life, but with caveats. It’s: Life of the mother (very important), incest, and rape.”
Foreign Policy: “I will… quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS, and rebuild our military and make it so strong no one – and I mean, no one – will mess with us.”
Taxes: “Simplifying the tax code and cutting every American’s taxes will boost consumer spending, encourage spending and investment, and maximize economic growth.”
Health care: “I want to get rid of Obamacare and get you something great.”
Education: “These student loans are probably one of the only things that the government shouldn’t make money from and yet it does.”
Crime and Safety: “I have to say that the police are absolutely mistreated and misunderstood.”

Marco Rubio
Current Position: Florida senator
History: Florida House of Representatives, Florida Senator
Immigration: “I am the son and grandson of immigrants and I know that securing our borders is not anti-immigrant and we will do it.”
Abortion: Pro-life “I believe a human being, an unborn child, has a right to live irrespective of the circumstances by which they were conceived.”
Foreign Policy: “As President I will challenge the real impediments to peace in the Middle East, and stand up for Israel.”
Taxes: “We will fix out tax code, so it’s no longer the most cumbersome, complex, complicated, and expensive in the developed world.”
Health care: “Obamacare is fatally flawed.” “We must save Medicare and Medicaid by placing them on fiscally sustainable paths.”
Education: “I think we should create alternatives to student loans to let employers pay for education and graduates… pay back a percentage of earnings.”
Crime and Safety: “What really boils my blood is all the bad talk about police officers in the media.”

Ted Cruz
Current Position: Texas Senator
History: Associate deputy general at US Department of Justice, domestic policy advisor to George W. Bush in 2000 campaign
Immigration: “As President, I will stop illegal immigration, build a wall that works, triple border security, and put in place the surveillance and biometric tracking to secure the border.”
Abortion: Pro-life, “I have been proud to fight… and stand against Planned Parenthood, to defend life for my entire career.”
Foreign Policy: “We should not be allowing Muslim refugees from countries where ISIS and al Qaeda have control of significant amounts of territory.”
Taxes: “We should let taxes become so simple that they could be filled out on a postcard.”
Health care: “I support repealing every single word of Obamacare.”
Education: “If I am elected president I will direct the U.S. Department of Education that the Common Core ends today and I will fight to abolish the federal Department of Education.”
Crime and Safety: “I’m proud to stand with law enforcement, to stand with the police and firefighters and first responders… they need a President who doesn’t vilify them and who doesn’t seek to tear us apart…”

Democratic Candidates

Hillary Clinton
Current Position: American politician
History: New York Senator, First Lady of the United States, Secretary of State
Immigration: “I will stand up against any effort to deport dreamers. Immigrants are vital to our economy.”
Abortion: “I will defend a woman’s right to choose. And I will defend Planned Parenthood.”
Foreign Policy: “We have to fight in the air, fight on the ground, and fight them on the Internet. We have to do everything we can with our friends and partners around the world.”
Taxes: “The wealthiest pay too little in taxes while the middle class needs more relief. I’m going to fix that. I’ll close corporate tax loopholes and make sure millionaires and billionaires can’t pay lower rates than middle-class families. And I’ll give tax relief to working families who are struggling with costs from college to health care.”
Health care: “I’ll defend the Affordable Care Act, build its successes, and go even further to reduce costs.”
Education: “I would like students to work ten hours a week in order to contribute to their education.” “We’re going to make community college free.”
Crime and Safety: “We want to get rid of the non-violent low-level offenses being a way to go into jail or prison.”

Bernie Sanders
Current Position: Vermont Senator
History: longest-serving independent in United States congressional history
Immigration: “Make sure that 11 million undocumented people in our country no longer have to live in the shadows, no longer have to live in fear, but can live in security and dignity.
Abortion: “The current attempt to discredit Planned Parenthood is part of a long-term smear campaign by people who want to deny women in this country the right to control their own bodies.”
Foreign Policy: “I will never forget those people who told us how easy it was to go into Iraq and how quickly our troops would come home. So I think what we need, in a very dangerous and difficult world, is to understand the United States cannot do it alone.”
Taxes: “It is time to redistribute money back to the working families of this country from the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and tax policy is one of the ways we do that.”
Health care: “I believe that health care in this country should be a right of all people, not a privilege.”
Education: “As President, I will: make tuition free at public colleges and universities, lower student loan interest rates for current and future borrowers…”
Crime and Safety: “A kid was shot… All I will say is that if police officers break the law, they must be held accountable… a gun should be a last resort, not a first resort.”

Third Party and Independent

Jill Stein
Current Position: Physician in Massachusetts, Green Party
History: Ran for President once before in 2012
Immigration: “We actually want to provide a welcoming and legal path to the immigrants who have always been the backbone of our economy, the backbone of the diversity that makes this country great.”
Abortion: Pro-choice, “…but providing birth control, sex education, and social services could help reduce the number of abortions.”
Foreign Policy: “I should add that this slave-like mentality towards Israel is absolutely unjustified. We need to start raising the bar for Israel and holding them to an equal standard for supporting human rights and international law and ending occupations and illegal settlements and apartheid.”
Taxes: “…will fight any attempt to balance the budget through tax or fee hikes that hit ordinary taxpayers.”
Health care: “In fact, birth control should not be up to your employer, nor should vaccinations or blood transfusions or any other aspect of healthcare that might be objected to on religious grounds. Healthcare is a human right. We should be providing it now for everyone.”
Education: “To ensure that our students have a strong, secure economic future, how about we bail out the students instead of bailing out the banks for the fourth time?”
Crime and Safety: “Over seven million [Americans] are under “correctional supervision”, 10 times greater than in 1965, as incarcerating poor people–disproportionately of color–has become big business with the failed war on drugs. And more African American males are now locked up in US prisons than were slaves in 1850.”

Gary Johnson
Current Position: Runs THC lozenges (a cannabis lozenge company)
History: Governor of New Mexico, ran for President once before in 2012
Immigration: “There should be a two-year grace period for illegal immigrants to attain work visas so they can continue contributing to America and begin taking part in American society openly.” “Enforce a ‘one strike, you’re out’ rule for immigrants who circumvent the streamlined work visa process.”
Abortion: “I support women’s rights to choose up until viability of the fetus.”
Foreign Policy: Maintaining a strong national defense is the most basic of the federal government’s responsibilities… America simply cannot afford to be engaged in foreign policy programs that are not clearly protecting U.S. interests. There is nation-building and rebuilding to be done right here at home.”
Taxes: “We need to get rid of the income tax. Giant, slow corporations spend their money on lobbying because tax avoidance is where their profit is.” “When anyone purchases a new good or service for personal consumption, be it a DVD or a yacht, the person is taxed. Fair-tax doesn’t tax used goods or business-to-business purchases.”
Health care: “I would have the federal government cut Medicare and Medicaid by 43% and block grant the programs [to the states] with no strings.”
Education: “I suggest that if student loans did not exist–and I am not advocating that– tuition would be a lot lower because colleges and universities want to deliver their product, and if there weren’t as many kids going to school because it costs too much, they would find ways to lower their price.”
Crime and Safety: “Half of all crime is drug-related. If we legalized drugs, we would destroy the environment that allows and even encourages all those crimes.”