With the election closely approaching on Nov. 8, voters are becoming serious about their decisions for the next president. Each candidate speaks rhetoric on how to solve massive issues like poverty and climate change. Educated voters, though, need to keep in mind some issues are too big to fix within one presidential term.

Persistent issues

For example, diminishing poverty within the U.S. is a difficult problem to tackle. In 2015, 13.5 percent of the U.S. population fell below the line of poverty. With a historically stagnant economy, the task of completely eliminating poverty remains difficult.

Although the candidates’ policies can help alleviate the effects of these issues, they will never fully eradicate them within their terms. Still, they will try to help certain issues.

In regards to poverty, both candidates have specific policies on how to tackle the problem.

Tackling poverty

Although Trump does not explicitly state how he will alleviate national poverty, he speaks about some issues such as child care. He seeks to lower poverty rates by helping families take care of their children through tax deductions and increasing paid maternity leave.

Clinton addresses poverty directly. She seeks to directly diminish the amount of poverty in America by creating higher paying jobs in her first 100 days of office, creating an improved education system that caters better to children and helps low-income families afford health care.

The challenge of the environment

In addition to poverty, the problem of global warming and its effects cannot go away within four years. Some negative effects of the environment will remain, such as the amount of carbon in the air and global water levels.

For the environment, only Clinton believes climate change exists and wants to reverse its effects. She seeks to invest in clean energy infrastructure, implement energy efficiency standards and cut tax subsidies for oil and gas companies.

Trump, on the other hand, believes climate change does not exist. He publicly claims the Chinese created this hoax to make a profit.

Voters must remember these aforementioned issues will extend well beyond the presidency. In the grand scheme of time, four years means nothing in comparison to the amount of time these problems take up. Greater issues like poverty and the environment transcend the presidency because of their sheer size. A president can never fix these issues overnight or on their own. Problems will remain problems no matter who is inaugurated in January 2017.