Candidate Position Paper and Competitive Analysis

I. Candidate biography

Personal information
Education
Trump’s full name is Donald John Trump. He was born on June 14, 1946, which puts him at 69 years old. He was born in Queens, New York. Trump has been married three times, and has five children. In total, his parents had five children; he was the fourth of them. When Trump was thirteen he was sent to the New York Military Academy, where he was successful both socially and academically. Graduating in 1964 he was both a star athlete and a student leader there. He then entered Fordham University and two years later transferred to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics.

Business Experience While Trump was in college, he began working with his dad during the summer. Shortly after graduating he joined his dad’s company, “Elizabeth Trump & Son”. Following this in 1971, Trump was given control of the company. He later renamed it, “Trump Organization”. Here are some of the places he was able to open up in the following years: The Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, developed a casino property on the boardwalk for Holiday Inn/Harrah’s, had a partnership with Holiday Inn Corporation before buying it from them, purchased a Hilton Hotels casino-hotel in Atlantic City, and also acquired the largest hotel-casino in the world, the Taj Mahal at Atlantic City. He also bought the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle, and a considerable amount of other property through the Trump Organization. In 2004 Trump began starring in the NBC reality series, The Apprentice. After the amount of success that produced, a spin-off was created, under the revised name of, The Celebrity Apprentice. He is currently Chairman and President of “The Trump Organization”. He also has his own merchandise line in clothing, books, fragrance, and natural spring water.

Business and political experience
Family information Some people may not know that in 1999 Trump announced the formation of an exploratory committee. The purpose of this was to bring up and discuss whether or not he should seek the Reform Party’s nomination for the presidential race of 2000. Unfortunately for Trump, he withdrew his candidacy due to poor showing during the California primary. Twelve years later, Trump publicly announced he was considering running for president again. However, his political reputation was discredited by many, after hearing his open beliefs and comments that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Trump made his official announcement to run for president on the Republican ticket for the 2016 elections, on June 16, 2015. Forbes ranks Mr. Trump number 14 in the world on their top 100 celebrity list in 2012. Mr. Trump is one of the highest paid speakers in the world, often drawing tens of thousands of people. In September of 2011, Mr. Trump gave a two-city speech in Australia, for over 3 million dollars.
As an Executive Vice President at The Trump Organization, Donald Jr. works in tandem with his siblings Ivanka and Eric to expand the company’s real estate, retail, commercial, hotel and golf interests nationally and internationally. Ivanka Trump is one of the most recognized and influential young business women today. As Executive Vice President of Development & Acquisitions of The Trump Organization, Ms. Trump is charged with the domestic and global expansion of the company’s real estate interests. As Executive Vice President of Development and Acquisitions for The Trump Organization, Eric is responsible for all new project acquisition, development and construction around the world. Trump’s second daughter, Tiffany, also enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. She’s currently interning at Italian fashion group Aeffe’s New York office. His fifth child Barron is eight years old.

II. Position paper

Immigration
Trump’s biggest discussion on immigration is his statement that we need a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. He says we need strong borders, and believes building an incredibly large wall is the course of action that needs to be done. He also believes that citizenship for illegal immigrants is a GOP suicide mission. Stating that if Congress grants citizenship to illegal immigrants, that 11 million people will be voting Democratic. Trump pointed out that 351,000 illegal aliens are in our prisons; costing $1.1B. He says that if they had never been allowed to cross the border to begin with, then we’d be saving an exponential amount of money. Trump’s thoughts on foreigner students: “We fling our arms wide open to the lowlifes, the criminals, the people who have no intention to contribute to our country. Wouldn't it be better if we invited foreign students graduating from our colleges to stay to build American companies?” –Time to Get Tough, by Donald Trump
Trump also suggests hiring another 25,000 border patrol agents, and giving them the aerial equipment they need, such as Predator drones. All in all he is opposed to new people coming in, and says we should focus on the people already here.

Education Trump has stated that he opposes Common Core in education. He is an avid supporter of putting an end to “dumbing down” the curriculum that students are being taught. He says right now we ask little of teachers and even less of students, and that this needs to change. Trump is very straight-forward with the current challenges America faces in education. From The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.69, he says, “The people running our public schools don’t want to damage a student’s self-esteem. They’re concerned about “empowerment.” They’re worried kids will feel bad if they get a problem wrong or flunk a spelling test. It’s better to pat a kid on the head and praise his “creative spelling” than point out that there is a traditional name for people with poor spelling skills. We call them illiterates. Some educators think being “judgmental” is the worst of all sins. The problem is that life tends to judge-and harshly at that. There’s no room for error when you’re launching the space shuttle. Or mixing the concrete for the foundation of Trump Tower, for that matter. Try giving a number “in the neighborhood of” on your tax returns and you may end up in a place where there’s a very definite number stamped on the back of your shirt.” Lastly, Trump is a supporter of school choice, and firmly believes that it will improve public schools. One reason he is a supporter of school choice is because he supports vouchers and charter schools. Foreign Policy Trump says that China is our enemy. If we are going to make America number one again, we have got to have a president who knows how to get tough with China, and how to out-negotiate the Chinese. He believes that by 2027, China will overtake the U.S. as the largest economy. With Trump as president, he has faith that he will be able to turn around this future he predicts. His stance on Russia is that we should support Russia, but with strings attached. In regards to China again, Trump emphasizes that he wants to make it absolutely clear that we are willing to trade with China. However, he also includes that under no circumstances will we keep our markets open to countries that steal from us.

Taxation Policy
Trump’s five-part tax plan involves reforming the income tax. This would be done by having 4 brackets; 1-5-10-15% and killing death tax & corporate tax. In other words, up to $30,000, you pay 1%. From $30,000 to $100,000, you pay 5%. From $100,000 to $1 million, you pay 10%. On $1 million or above, you pay 15%. Along with that he points out that cutting tax rates incentivizes a strong national work ethic. He previously supported wealth tax; now supports Bush tax cuts. Strongly outspoken on repealing the inheritance tax to offset one-time wealth tax. The tax code should be simplified, along with ending marriage penalty & other hidden taxes. Opposes flat tax; currently benefits wealthy too much. Strong advocate on a one-time 14.25% tax on wealth, to erase national debt.
Economy & Budget Trump informs that we owe $19T in the U.S., and that we definitely need a businessman to bring us back. He says that if debt reached $24T, that’s the point of no return. Therefore, conveying that presidential office needs to change as soon as possible, and he believes he’ll be able to stop the debt from growing even larger. He also predicts a 35% boost to economy from eliminating national debt. In 2006, he warned about impending implosion of The financial sector, and it indeed happened.

III. Competitive analysis Gulf PowerCompetitor MatrixCom | Competitive Analysis | | Education | Immigration | Taxation policy | Foreign Policy | Economy & Budget | Trump | 4.0 | 4.8 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 1.0 | Bush | 4.1 | 2.3 | 3.0 | 3.7 | 2.9 | Rubio | 4.6 | 3.5 | 4.0 | 4.5 | 3.6 | Carson | 4.5 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 3.0 | 2.4 | TOTAL | 17.2 | 13.4 | 14 | 18.7 | 16.8 | | | | | | | | | | | | |