EDITORIAL: Are you better off than you were 4 years ago? New Mexicans will answer that question today

It’s been a presidential election unlike any the nation has seen.

The Republican candidate, a former president himself, has survived impeachments, civil and criminal trials, ballot disqualification efforts and even assassination attempts in his effort to become the first president since Grover Cleveland to reclaim the White House after losing a reelection bid.

The Democratic candidate, the current vice president, is actually the second Democratic front runner in the race, with less time on the campaign trail than her boss. The sitting president, who won an overwhelming majority of delegates in the Democratic primaries, stepped out of the race with just three full months left before Election Day after a disastrous debate that all but ended his 50-year political career.

The leading independent candidate, whose family name is inextricably linked with Democratic Party folklore, is now campaigning for the Republican candidate and vying for an influential spot in his administration if he should win today.

Anyone who saw all of that coming should buy a lottery ticket.

With the key players well-known to voters, and with known records in office, the question voters across New Mexico and America will answer today is: “Am I better off than I was four years ago.”

A top issue in the election is immigration and border security.

Former President Donald Trump is promising the most massive deportation program of illegal immigrants in U.S. history, an initiative he named “Operation Aurora,” in reference to alien gangs who reportedly took over apartment complexes in the Colorado city.

Vice President Kamala Harris, whom President Joe Biden assigned the task of addressing immigration in March 2021, is pushing to resurrect bipartisan immigration reform legislation that stalled in Congress this year and which would have given the executive branch emergency authority to shut down the border, close loopholes in the asylum process and bar most migrants from seeking asylum if unauthorized immigration at the border reached an average of 5,000 encounters a day over seven consecutive days.

Trump wants to cut federal spending to sanctuary cities like Albuquerque and to temporarily shut down the U.S-Mexico border to stem the flow of migrants, while Harris wants to provide migrants the full slew of government benefits.

“We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border,” she said at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

The two candidates couldn’t be farther apart on illegal immigration and border security.

President Trump is promising more tax cuts, after delivering the largest tax cuts in history during his administration. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security could result in significant economic boost for hardworking Americans and retirees.

Vice President Harris joined the “No tax on tips” bandwagon, but supports ending the tax cuts of the Trump administration, saying they disproportionately went to the wealthy. However, eliminating the Trump tax cuts would significantly affect all taxpayers, not just the wealthy.

Harris proposes increasing the tax rate on long-term capital gains to 28% for those earning at least $1 million a year, a 40% increase, and expanding the federal child tax credit to $6,000 for families with newborns. She also wants to increase the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. That 33.3% increase would be passed along to consumer with higher prices on just about everything.

The two candidates couldn’t be farther apart on tax policies.

President Trump says he wants to unleash America’s full energy production potential and drive down energy costs, reducing the costs of goods and services across the board.

Harris has said she “absolutely supports” an end to fracking, although her campaign has since softened her opposition to fossil fuel extraction.

President Trump promises to immediately end electric vehicle mandates imposed by the Biden administration and to allow consumers to drive innovation rather than bureaucrats.

Vice President Harris is a longtime climate hawk who backed the original Green New Deal.

Trump’s campaign mantra is “Drill, baby, drill.” Harris emphasizes she grew up in a middle class working family.

The two candidates couldn’t be farther apart on energy policies.

As attorney general of California, Vice President Harris bragged about making the Golden State the first in the nation to fund gender-affirming health care, aka sex change operations, for inmates in California prisons.

President Trump, on the other hand, promises to “keep men out of women’s sports.”

The two candidates couldn’t be farther apart on transgender issues.

Trump talks about paying down our astounding $36 trillion federal debt, while Harris proposes $25,000 in down payment support for first-time homebuyers.

Trump talks of making energy more affordable, while Harris, who has called climate change an existential threat and says the United States needs to act urgently, envisions more renewable energy sources like wind and solar to cut carbon emissions.

Harris cast the deciding vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate bill in congressional history, which Republicans say was part of massive federal spending during the Biden administration that drove inflation to 40-year highs.

In fact, issue after issue, the two candidates couldn’t be farther apart.

Today, voters will decide whose agenda is more appealing, or which is less desirable. The Journal, which again cannot get behind either of the presidential nominees, has confidence New Mexico voters will make wise decisions and choose which candidate is better for themselves, their families and their communities — and indeed if they are better off than they were four years ago.