Issues not candidates will decide the presidential election

Whether Trump or Harris wins will not be decided by personalities but rather by issues. Here are some issues I think will determine the presidential election results. Where you stand is up to you.

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Politics/Tuesday August 20, 2024

The news media spin has already started on the presidential election and if you believe it, Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz are leading the race.

I watched Monday's nights program trying to be objective.

Seeing Hillary Clinton brought back ugly memories of her attitudes of entitlement and arrogance, the factors that cost her the election in 2016 and brought us Donald Trump.

The evening was mainly set to be a tribute to President Joe Biden, to redefine his four years in office as a "thank you" for having stepped down rather than allow his cognitive challenges to drag the entire party down.

Biden did very well. I am sure his speech was written for him, but in all honesty, he did a great job delivering it, making you wonder why he could do that instead of horribly stumbling through his debate with Trump back in June.

But as I watched the Democratic Convention, I realized that the election isn't really about who is better, Harris or Trump, but rather what issues do they represent that the American people agree with or that they oppose.

Harris will get a honeymoon publicity "bump" in popularity as a result of the convention this week.

The news media coverage of the Democratic Convention was so much more positive than how the news media covered the Republican Convention in Milwaukee in July, another reflection of the bias we see that undermines media credibility.

Harris, who few Americans really knew because she was always kept behind the political curtain by Biden during the past three years, is a fresh face that the news media feels they can mold to counter Trump, whom they truly hate.

After the first day of the Convention, the news media was almost giddy projecting that Harris and Walz will sweep the presidential elections because they have the backing on "energized youth" and "women."

Harris is an unknown political quantity. No one really knows her well enough to say she will be good or bad. She has a lot of supporters who want her to win and defeat Trump, but what you want and what you get are always two different things.

The convention will be over in a few days. The media will make it look like the "Second Coming of Christ," one of the greatest conventions (stories) ever held (told). They have an agenda, and it is not journalism, it is not objectivity and information, and it is not you, the public.

So what do you do?

I know what I will do. I will look at the issues each candidate addresses. I will listen to the candidates, not the biased news media spin.

What are those issues that are important?

Here are some of the issues I think will decide the election, and which side will benefit from each.

ABORTION

Well, Abortion is important, but we have been fighting over abortion for generations and nothing has been resolved. Roe Vs Wade was a national compromise that only tempered the national debate. It never resolved it. Now the issue has been thrown to each state and some states are good and some states are bad.

For me, abortion should only be permitted during the first trimester and only if the life of the mother, or fetus, is in danger, or the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape. But the decisions to have an abortion should be made during that first 12 weeks, not during the 22nd week.

Abortion should not be birth control.

Trump wants restrictions, Harris wants restrictions removed.

GUN CONTROL

Guns don't commit crimes. Criminals commit crimes, but easy access to guns makes it easier for the criminals to commit those crimes.

We need to make access to guns more difficult and require everyone to have a national background check and require a waiting period (to prevent emotion from being the reason for bringing a gun into a person's life or circumstances.)

The issue of guns is owned by the Gun Lobby, which opposes any reasonable compromise to restrict guns and ban mass firing weapons.

Trump opposes more restrictions and believes the real problem is on stopping the criminals. Trump wants to punish the criminals who use guns, not the gun industry. He believes everyone has a right to own a gun.

Harris favors more restrictions on gun ownership and possession but is weak on cracking down on criminals. She wants to blame the gun shops that sell the guns and increase laws preventing gun ownership.

CRIME

Crime is a constant problem. It seems more crimes are committed in urban areas where populations favor low incomes, making money one of the driving forces behind the crime surges that come and go.

There are crimes involving domestic violence, which are more difficult to prevent because those crimes are usually the result of emotional bursts.

Harris is resistant to imposing tougher punishments on criminals and favors "understanding" the factors that push some to criminal activities. It's true, that the poorer you are, the greater the chance you might engage in a crime (to feed your family, pay for mounting bills, provide for yourself or family members, or to put food on your table.)

Trump wants to crack down on criminals and opposes the trend in which urban areas like Illinois and Cook County have adopted laws to lessen the punishments on criminals and raise the bar on the severity of a crime. Illinois eliminated the death penalty, but the death penalty should be imposed when a criminal intentionally takes someone's life.

The threat of the Death Penalty may not always prevent a crime, especially a crime of passion, but it can be used as leverage against convicted criminals who refuse to provide information on their victims.  When the choice is to commit a crime, and the criminal knows that it will result in a certain death penalty, it could discourage the severity of a crime. Without the death penalty, the severity of the punishment is lifted for many criminals who progress in committing greater crimes.

ILLEGAL ALIENS/MIGRANTS

Every illegal alien who enters America costs every American taxpayer money. Money that could be used to help needy Americans are instead used to help those who break the law and enter the country illegally.

Harris believes that we should help these "migrants," who are essentially illegal aliens, or non-citizens who enter this country illegally. Billions are spent every year towards that goal. She says she wants to control the border, but those controls are questionable.

Trump wants to stop illegal aliens from entering the country and believes we should be spending money not on helping them to circumvent the law but instead to help other Americans.

SENIORS

Seniors are the most exploited constituency in American politics.

Harris says that the Biden administration has capped the costs of prescriptions. Well, not really. They did cap the cost of insulin to an affordable amount, which is great. Harris opposes big pharma and big corporations and wants them to pay more.

Trump favors big pharma and big corporations and the wealthy, but he wants to ease the burden on seniors in other ways, such as by ending the Federal Tax on Social Security income. Many states have eliminated the tax on Social Security income, but the Federal Tax is still prohibitive. (I wrote about it in the last column).

Many Seniors are forced to continue working in their old age in order to make ends meet. They can't retire. It is unfair to those seniors who collect Social Security but have to continue working to tax them on that Social Security income.

We should encourage seniors to work and not punish them by taxing their Social Security.

The Social Security Trust Fund needs funding and the best way to increase that funding is to significantly lift the artificial ceiling that is placed on what income is taxed to collect funds for Social Security. The Federal Government collects a tax on the first $168,000 a person earns. Anything earned above $168,000 is not taxed for Social Security.

Why is there a limit. Every dollar earned whether it is $168,000 or $1 million should be taxed for Social Security. That would help resolve the problem of the weakening Social Security Trust Fund.

In other words, don't tax any Social Security payouts to seniors, and, remove the $168,000 ceiling on income that can be taxed. Every dollar earned should be taxed to put money into the Social Security Trust Fund.

These are just some of the issues that are going to be debated. How you feel about them means more than how you feel about the candidates.

Personally, I favor a crackdown on illegal immigrants, a major change in Social Security to make the wealthy pay into the Social Security Trust Fund, restrict Abortions to only certain situations, impose more severe restrictions on gun ownership, and increase the penalties against criminals (including severely increasing jail time making it mandatory when a gun is used in a crime or when a human life is taken in a crime).

I know who best supports my views.

Who best supports yours?