What do Trump and Clinton have planned for the first 100 days?

By Ian Whitaker

Monday, Nov. 7, 2016 | 2 a.m.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt took the podium in Washington, D.C., for his first inauguration, the U.S. was in a dire situation.

It was 1933, the middle of the Great Depression. Millions were out of work. Thousands of banks had failed, and hundreds of thousands of families had lost their farms. Industrial production was devastated. Savings were wiped out, and people feared that it was all about to get worse.

But on the steps of the Capitol, Roosevelt uttered the now famous phrase: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

The speech is widely regarded as one of the most inspiring ever made from the inauguration podium, and it paved the way for one of the largest political mobilizations ever undertaken by a U.S. president.

In 2016, America finds itself in a similar state of disillusionment.

Trust in the country’s institutions — Congress, corporations, the news media — is at an all-time low. A majority of Americans feel the economy is getting worse.

A poll conducted in late October found that 81 percent of people just wanted the election to be over. About 70 percent said the election was stressing them out.

Roosevelt’s decisive action set a precedent for leadership in times of great uncertainty, but what will be the legacy of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? In recent weeks, the nominees have revealed what they’d prioritize early, known in presidential politics as “the first 100 days.”

Hillary Clinton's first 100 days

In a sort of modern reprise of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Clinton has advocated for renewed spending on infrastructure and creating jobs.

She has proposed $275 billion in new and modernized roads, dams, bridges and airports as part of a five-year plan, but her plan to find the cash has been controversial.

In leaked transcripts of speeches to Wall Street, Clinton has suggested allowing multinational corporations to take about $2.4 trillion in profits, which are stashed offshore to avoid paying taxes, back to the United States at a much lower tax rate than usual, as long as part of that money goes to an infrastructure bank.

It’s a plan that has rankled many liberals who think the corporations should have to pay the full tax, but Republicans, who could tumble out of this election still in control of the House of Representatives, have been in favor of lowering it. Forging partnerships with Republicans in Congress over such issues would likely be a priority for Clinton early on, especially when it comes to immigration. Although Donald Trump has maintained a hard stance on the issue, including saying he would deport everyone who’s in the country illegally, many Republicans in Congress have expressed support for some form of comprehensive immigration reform.

Clinton has said reforming the immigration system would be a crucial focus in her first 100 days.

She faces an uphill battle with her other initiatives, however, which include proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. FEC. It’s the controversial Supreme Court ruling that political donations were equivalent to free speech, paving the way for an unprecedented wave of private and special-interest financing of elections.

Her economic plan is significantly more in-depth than Trump’s. It includes raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, closing a variety of tax loopholes for foreign corporations and getting rid of much of the inequality baked into the current tax system. Clinton, like Obama, also proposes instituting the infamous Buffett Rule, where multimillionaires can get away with effectively paying a lower percentage of taxes than their own secretaries.

When it comes to foreign policy, Clinton’s proposals could be a reprise of the interventionist approach taken by the George W. Bush administration. During a debate against Trump, Clinton accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of committing a number of atrocities in Syria, and called for a no-fly zone to protect civilians against strikes from Russian and Syrian aircraft. It’s a major departure from the current Democratic president’s approach, which has largely been to stay neutral, and has drawn strong criticism from those who claim it could spark an international incident, and possibly World War III.

Donald Trump's first 100 days

From forcing Mexico to pay for a border wall to renegotiating NAFTA, Trump’s plans have grabbed their fair share of headlines. In a speech in late October, Trump laid out a blueprint.

The first day would be quite a busy one. Trump said the first order of business would focus on “draining the swamp” of corruption in Washington, D.C. He’d do this by proposing a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on all members of Congress; banning federal officials from becoming lobbyists for five years after leaving office; and instituting a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying for foreign governments and foreign lobbyists contributing to U.S. elections. He also said he would freeze all new hires in the federal government (besides public health, public safety and military) and require that for every federal regulation passed, two would have to be repealed.

His second raft of proposals involves economic and environmental issues. He would announce his intention to renegotiate NAFTA and withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, officially designate China a currency manipulator and direct officials to identify and end foreign trade abuses. When it comes to energy and the environment, Trump said he would lift restrictions on dirty energy like oil and coal, push the Keystone Pipeline and refuse to pay for U.N. climate-change programs.

The first 100 days of a Donald Trump presidency would start with a settling of scores, namely a whole new investigation into his Democratic opponent over her mishandling of confidential information while secretary of state. He also said he would cancel every executive order made by President Barack Obama.

But these are things that a President Trump would be empowered to do more or less with the flick of a pen. When it comes to many of his signature proposals, he’d require congressional cooperation.

His legislative plans include taxing companies which move jobs offshore, enticing private industry to invest in infrastructure, ending Common Core, incentivizing employers to offer child care, reducing crime, spending more on the military and repealing Obamacare.

But his biggest legislative goals are a middle-class tax-reduction program and his long-standing promise to build a wall along the nation’s border with Mexico.

His tax reduction would apply only to families with two children, leaving the wealthy and corporations with a much better deal by halving the tax rate and allowing corporations that hid money overseas to bring it back at a much lower rate.

Trump’s main obstacle to building a border wall would be finding the funding, especially because he believes he can get Mexico to pay the full cost. He proposes to do this by threatening to block nonresidents from wiring money outside the country unless Mexico agrees to pay $5 billion to $10 billion to subsidize the wall. If that doesn’t work, he favors canceling the visas of Mexican businesspeople.