OPINION:
Actions speak louder than words. Donald Trump comes from the private sector, where results matter more than promises. As president, he has delivered on the promises he made four years ago.
Unemployment in America fell to a 50-year-low under President Trump. Specifically, the lowest unemployment rates ever recorded by category were achieved by African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, people with disabilities and veterans. Over the past five months, Americans have added more than 11 million new jobs. Mr. Trump knows how to get people back to work.
In contrast, former Vice President Joe Biden says he would get rid of the Trump tax cuts. That means a crippling tax increase of $4 trillion just as Americans are getting back on our feet again after the global pandemic. The tax cuts signed by Mr. Trump lowered the tax burden for 82% of working families in our country. Those same families would see a tax increase if Mr. Biden repeals the tax cuts — as he says he will if elected president.
Earlier this year, Mr. Trump took action when Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx warned him and Vice President Mike Pence that they needed to do something or as many as 2.2 million Americans could die from coronavirus. They did. We bent the curve and it saved lives. Now, the Trump administration is taking action to get America working again.
In contrast, Mr. Biden ridiculed the president for his orders to limit travel from China and other parts of the world. Interestingly, Mr. Biden’s former chief of staff reflected last year on the Obama-Biden administration’s handling of H1N1, saying “We did every possible thing wrong. Sixty million Americans got H1N1 in that period of time, and it is just purely a fortuity that this isn’t one of the great mass-casualty events in American history.”
Now, Mr. Biden is talking about possibly shutting down the entire economy early next year if that is what his advisers tell him to do. Doing so would be devastating for both the health of our citizens (particularly those missing out on screenings for serious diseases like cancer) and the health of our economy (especially small businesses).
States like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania would bear the brunt of Mr. Biden’s attacks on our energy supplies. His efforts to phase out fossil fuels would raise the cost of energy for working families and ending fracking will threaten as many as 19 million jobs.
Mr. Trump wants to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something that provides better health care without the heavy hand of the government. He will protect people with pre-existing conditions and help lower the costs of prescription drugs. Mr. Biden wants to keep Obamacare and move toward government-run health care.
Mr. Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, co-sponsored the bill to have our entire health care system taken over by the federal government. That means 180 million of us would no longer have our own health care plans. And it puts an already underfunded Medicare system at risk for our seniors.
Many supporters of the Biden-Harris ticket want to defund the police. Donald Trump and Mike Pence will continue to defend the police. They support law and order and stand with the brave men and women who serve and protect our communities. At the same time, Mr. Trump has done more for criminal justice reform than any president in modern history.
Ironically, then-Sen. Joe Biden pushed the federal crime bill that included some of the mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines reformed by the Trump administration. Sadly, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris were slow to criticize the violence that gripped cities across America. They were silent this summer as major American cities burned.
In fact, it took three nights of riots and flames in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for the Democratic nominee for president to finally make reference to the violence. Ironically, Ms. Harris spoke with the family of Jacob Blake and said she was proud of the man with an outstanding warrant for sexual assault.
Mr. Trump gave the voters a list of the highly qualified women and men he would put on the bench. Once in office, he kept his promise — yet again with the brilliant Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
In stark contrast, Mr. Biden refuses to reveal whom he might put on the federal bench. And even though he once opposed packing the court, Mr. Biden is now open to the idea, which would likely lead to radical activists taking over the federal judiciary.
Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate before I even went to school. He ran for president three times. Yet, it seems clear that Donald Trump has done more in nearly 47 months to clean up Washington than Joe Biden has done in the 47 years since he first came to Washington. The choice is clear.
• Scott Walker was the 45th governor of Wisconsin. You can contact him at swalker@washingtontimes.com or follow him @ScottWalker.
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