User:Lights and freedom/sandbox

COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic was a major issue of the campaign, with Trump's responses being heavily criticized. The president has spread mixed messages on the value of wearing face masks as protection, including criticizing Biden and reporters for wearing them, but has also encouraged their use at times. Biden advocated for expansion of federal funding, including funding under the Defense Production Act for testing, personal protective equipment, and research. Trump has also invoked the Defense Production Act to a lesser extent to control the distribution of masks and ventillators, but his response plan relies significantly on a vaccine being released by the end of 2020. At the second presidential debate, Trump claimed that Biden had called him xenophobic for restricting entry from foreign nationals who had visited China, but Biden clarified that he had not been referring to this decision.

Economy and stock market
Trump claimed credit for the consistent economic expansion of his presidency's first three years, with the stock market at its longest growth period in history, and unemployment at a fifty-year low. Additionally, he touted the 2020 third quarter rebound, in which GDP grew at an annualized rate of 33.1%, as evidence of his prowess. Biden repeated that the strong economy under Trump's presidency was inherited from the Obama administration, and that Trump has aggravated the economic impact of the pandemic, including the need for 42 million Americans to file for unemployment.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which lowered income tax for most Americans, as well as lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, was an important part of Trump's economic policy. The president credits this act for lowering the unemployment rate to 3.5% pre-pandemic. Biden and Democrats generally described these cuts as unfairly benefiting the upper class. Biden plans to raise taxes on corporations and those making over $400,000 per year, while keeping the reduced taxes on lower income brackets, and raise capital gains taxes to a maximum bracket of 39.6%. In response, Trump says Biden's plans will destroy retirement accounts and the stock market.

Environment
Trump and Biden have significant differences in environmental policy agenda, with Trump stating at times that climate change was a hoax, although he has also called it a serious subject. Trump has condemned the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas reduction, and has began the withdrawal process, while Biden plans to rejoin it, and announced a $2 trillion climate action plan. However, Biden has not fully accepted the Green New Deal, a progressive climate policy promoted by Sanders and other politicians on the left. Biden does not plan to ban fracking, but rather to outlaw new fracking on federal land; yet in a debate, Trump claimed that Biden wanted to ban it altogether. Trump's other environmental policies have included the removal of methane emission standards, and an expansion of mining.

Health care
Health care was a divisive issue in both the Democratic primary campaign and the general campaign. While Biden, as well as other candidates, promised protection of the Affordable Care Act, Bernie Sanders advocated to replace the private insurance industry with Medicare for All. Biden's plan involves a public option to health care, and the restoration of the individual mandate to buy health care which was removed from the Affordable Care Act by the 2017 tax cut bill, as well as restoring funding for Planned Parenthood. Trump has announced plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, calling it "too expensive", but has not said what would replace it.

Racial unrest
As a result of the killing of George Floyd and other incidents of police brutality against African Americans, combined with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a period of racial unrest erupted in mid-2020. Many protests took place, most being peaceful, but riots and looting have also occurred. Trump suggested sending in the military to rein in the chaos, which was criticized, especially by Democrats, as heavy-handed and potentially illegal. Particularly controversial was a photo Trump took in front of St. John's Church in Washington D.C., before which military police had forcefully cleared protestors from the area. Biden condemned Trump for valuing his image above the causes for which protestors were fighting; he described George Floyd's words "I can't breathe" as a "wake-up call for our nation". He also promised he would create a police oversight commission in his first 100 days as president, and establish a uniform use of force standard, as well as other police reform measures.