Democratic Candidate Wrap-Up
Call for college students to “be informed and get involved”
As the 2020 election continues to heat up, there’s a lot of information to learn about the potential candidates. The Democratic Party has put forth many candidates to challenge Donald Trump for the Presidency, with varying stances on the nation’s most important issues. This article serves as a guide that will highlight the stances of five of the top polling candidates on issues that college students need to know about.
One issue that affects all college students is education and the student debt crisis. Although frontrunner Joe Biden (former VP) has stated that he supports the idea of free public college, he remains one of the only candidates who has yet to release an official plan to combat rising tuition prices and student debt. In contrast, Bernie Sanders (VT) has proposed possibly the most progressive plan, in which he intends to establish free public college, reduce student loan interest rates, and eventually cancel all student debts. Kamala Harris (CA) proposes lowering the weight of debts by cancelling up to $20,000 in debt for Pell Grant recipients that meet certain requirements. Similar to Sanders, Elizabeth Warren (MA) has plans to eliminate ninety-five percent of student debt, leaving out income earners in the top five percent of Americans. All of these candidates, along with Mayor Pete Buttigieg (IN) also want to raise teacher salaries, and in Buttigieg’s case, focusing first on schools with more racial and economic inequality.
The future of our generation will be largely affected by climate change, and our next president’s plan to combat it. All five of these candidates support some form of a Green New Deal to reduce carbon emissions and have a greener economy. Biden, Sanders, and Buttigieg have all pledged to reach net-zero emissions as a country by 2050, while Harris and Warren have ambitions to reach this goal by 2045 and 2030 respectively. Some candidates, like Buttigieg and Sanders, propose ending tax subsidies to fossil fuel companies to incentivize cleaner energy initiatives. Sanders intends to invest $16.3 trillion in fighting climate change--the highest amount of all the candidates.
Gun control has become one of the hottest topics of debate in America. Citizens everywhere, especially younger generations, are looking to these Democratic hopefuls to find a successful end to gun violence. All candidates highlighted in this article advocate for banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines as a top priority. They’ve also proposed various plans to institute universal background checks that will apply to private and online sales as well as commercial ones. Buttigieg has vowed to allocate more funds to gun violence research in order to find a viable solution. Biden is taking a different route by proposing buy-back programs for the aforementioned assault weapons and magazines. Warren wants to push legislation to raise the minimum age limit for all gun sales to 21 years of age.
Issues like education, climate change, and gun control only scratch the surface of the critical topics being addressed in the latest election. As college students, we are beginning to enter the complicated world of American politics and explore our own views on the issues it raises. No matter your political stance, the most important thing is to be informed and get involved.