With the soap opera of the Republican nominations taking over the U.S. political scene, the Democrats have been somewhat overshadowed. The few who are focusing on the Democratic elections have seen a clear frontrunner come through: Hillary Clinton. Despite the astonishing rise of Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton still remains the overwhelming favourite to be the Democratic candidate for 2016, and for good reason. Unlike the radical policies of Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton actually has feasible policies that can work in real life, as well as on paper. Too much of politics in the past 30 years or so has been dominated by broken promises, with politicians not being able to do what they promised to the people. One of the ways to combat this is by actually introducing realistic policies in the first place, which will both boost the economy and not leave people with a sour taste in their mouth. The first policy of Mrs. Clinton’s which I advocate is the profit sharing scheme.

For too long, corporations have been taking all the profits and not sharing them to their backbone: the working people. The infamous “Reaganomics” or “trickle-down economics”, as you might call it, has been famously debunked as corporations just do not want to share their profits. And after all, why would they? There is frankly no legislation put in place which binds them to do this, and as evidenced countless times throughout history, corporations will not change the way they operate unless you force them to. The tax credit she is introducing will make sure that businesses, especially small ones, have the money required to introduce this profit sharing plan, and the cap on the tax credit makes sure that businesses do not take more than they need. In periods of economic decline, such as the 2008 global recession, businesses have looked to workers for help, yet when business is booming, the worker rarely gets their just reward. This profit sharing plan would make sure that while profits are high, the workers get paid more for their labour. This also provides an incentive for workers to work harder, as they know that there is a reward for doing so, and this logically will increase productivity. It is one of the only win-win policies in politics at the moment, and for this reason, it must be implemented.

It’s no surprise that income inequality has ballooned in recent decades, with high ranking executives and presidents sometimes getting as much as a thousand times more pay as their workers. To make America’s economy fairer, this growing problem needs to be abated. Raising the minimum wage is the first step to doing this. This will also boost the economy in the long run because we are actually giving spending power to the masses, and not just the 1%. With increased spending, there is also increased investment, and thus the economy is boosted. It would also make workers feel like they are actually getting paid proportionally to their labour, which, as aforementioned, will increase productivity. This will also protect workers from being exploited without their knowledge, as the corporations will know that if found out, their reputation may never be the same, and, perhaps most importantly, they might have to pay a fee for this misdemeanour.

Clinton also wants to encourage long term investment by introducing a substantially increased capital gains tax on short term investments, which will progressively decrease year by year. It has been seen from history that economic growth is contemporaneous with increased long term investments, and I firmly believe that this correlation is more than just that, a correlation, and that long term investment actually does encourage economic growth. Too many people have focused on short term gains in the past, not looking towards their long term futures. This plan will both abate the aforesaid problem and give the government more money to invest in scientific programs to cure diseases, for example. It will also help get Americans out of debt, as hopefully their long term investments will yield a sizeable return. When people are out of debt, their spending power increases, which will boost the economy as well. However, the main focus of Clinton’s policies are not to boost the economy, but to make the economy fairer. A developed country such as America should not have the gargantuan levels of income inequality that it does now, and the person to abate this problem is not Bernie Sanders, nor (obviously) Donald Trump or Jeb Bush, but Hillary Clinton.