In total honesty, neither Trump nor Cruz are my image of an ideal candidate, to say the least. But if you have to pick between the lesser of two supremely morally-questionable evils, then here are the facts on where they stand on a range of economic issues.
The Federal Reserve
Trump is not a fan. Trump isn’t a fan of much. He mostly just enjoys babbling about all the things that he hates, and then his solution is to make everything that hates illegal for everyone.
He’s acknowledged that the Federal Bank is a fairly broken system, but hasn’t proposed any potential solutions to the perceived problem.
Cruz, on the other hand, has a more condemning view of the Federal Bank. He repeated proposes legislation to “audit the Fed,” but they don’t pass because he doesn’t seem to know all the facts about how the Federal Bank is regulated. The Federal Bank IS already audited by a number of independent groups.
There are concerns that any additional checks and audits imposed on the Fed that Cruz would incur could leash the Bank to Cruz’s political interests and the Fed would no longer serve the needs of the government as a whole, let alone its people.
Taxes
Generally speaking, most Republicans don’t favor taxes. Although most politicians fail to come up with a better plan for funding our massive national debt. Here are the two candidate’s proposed tax plans, so you can compare to see which is “better”:
There are seven existing tax brackets, but Trump proposes to limit them down to just four. Those would be 0%, 10%, 20% and 25%. People who earn less than $25,000 would pay no taxes. But he also plans to reduce already low corporate taxes even farther, from approx. 39% to just 15%. Some speculate that decision is made in the interest of his corporate empire, rather than from a political standpoint. An unsurprising move, given Trump’s lack of political experience and his origins as a business owner rather than a political representative of anyone.
In comparison, Cruz’s plan is alarmingly radical (as if Trump’s weren’t already shocking enough). Cruz would completely eliminate all tax brackets and lump them into one category. 10% for everyone; no matter what your income is like, regardless of your family situations, etc. He also intends to completely abolish corporate taxes, so businesses would be able to grow to massive proportions without paying anything other than a fee on sales and wages.
His tax plan could cripple the middle and lower class, but it would allow businesses to operate freely without the burden of taxes.
The U.S. Job Market
Neither Trump nor Cruz have outlined particularly detailed plans on how they plan to improve jobs in America, although they certainly talk about it a lot.
Trump likes to say that jobs would be his speciality if he were miraculously elected to represent America, as his experience as a CEO would lead the way. But his current views simply follow what every GOP candidate repeats: trim back government regulation and reduce taxes for all businesses.
Once again, Cruz takes it a step further into radicalism. He has a more specific plan in mind to cut major government departments (which would result in job losses for every employee connected to these massive departments, but that hasn’t seemed to cross his mind). Cruz says he would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He’s failed to explain how this will help the job market.
In summation, neither of these candidates has a feasible plan for the American economy just yet. So take your pick.