Today, an income over $300,000 in adjusted gross income would put someone into the top 1%. The equivalent income of $50,000 in 1962, however, put one into just the top 0.2%; that is, the top two-tenths of 1%. To be in the top 1% in 1962, one only needed an income of $25,000. Those with incomes above this level got 14% of the Kennedy tax cut.
"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus," said President Kennedy in a news conference in 1962.
The increased revenue the government enjoyed from his tax cuts never became a surplus, but was used by his successor, President Lyndon B Johnson, to fund ambitious social programs that have transformed our country to this day -- from a nation of individuals to a collective -- looking toward the federal government for handouts.
President Kennedy understood business, and the necessity of business to be able to make money. Unlike the Democrats of today, he did not demonize those corporations who moved capital off-shore in order to maintain a profit.
"In those countries where income taxes are lower than in the United States, the ability to defer the payment of U.S. tax by retaining income in the subsidiary companies provides a tax advantage for companies operating through overseas subsidiaries that is not available to companies operating solely in the United States. Many American investors properly made use of this deferral in the conduct of their foreign investment," he told Congress in April of 1963.
Instead of demanding that Congress act to penalize those international corporations -- as do Democrats today -- he used those examples as an argument for tax breaks for business.
President Kennedy was strong on national defense -- a warrior unafraid of confronting evil, and defeating it -- a strong departure from the surrender monkeys that have controlled the Democratic Party since the surrender of Saigon and the resulting deaths of millions of our allies.
While still a Senator, John Kennedy gave an impassioned speech to Congress to close the "Missile Gap" between the United States and the Soviet Union.
His ringing call to close the "missile gap" which will face us in the years ahead was termed by Joseph Alsop as "one of the most remarkable speeches on American defense and national strategy that this country has heard since the end of the last war."
When confronted with the imposition of Soviet missiles in Cuba, he stood tough against a clear and present danger to our nation, and forced the USSR to back down. The United States stood upon the bring of war, but the president knew that strength, and not weakness, was the only way to deal with our enemies. President Kennedy apologized to no nation for American strength -- he offered no peace plan to our enemies that would leave this country more vulnerable and less safe.
When the USSR began to isolate Berlin with the building of the Berlin Wall during his presidency, President Kennedy went to Berlin, and gave this message of strength to the German people.
I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of West Berlin. And I am proud to visit the Federal Republic with your distinguished Chancellor who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and progress, and to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.
Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was "civis Romanus sum." Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner."
I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!
There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.
Can anyone imagine any Democrat leader making such a speech today? I know I cannot.
President Kennedy believed in the content of a man's character, rather than the color of that man's skin. While he was a warrior for civil rights, it was Johnson, not Kennedy that imposed reverse discrimination in the form of Affirmative Action quotas on this nation.
And finally, in his inaugural address on January 20, 1981, President Kennedy said this:
"...we observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning—signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty....
--snip--
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Has any American Democrat spoken words such as these in the last thirty years, and meant them? I think not.
If he were alive today, John F Kennedy would be a Republican.
I have a piece of the Wall, given me by a friend who was in the Berlin Brigade when it came down. Too bad America has forgotten what communism looked like. We really need to "Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen."
Beautiful Post David!!