WILLisms.com: Quotational Therapy: Part 133 -- JFK On Taxes.

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Quotational Therapy: Part 133 -- JFK On Taxes.

Kennedy Seemed To Understand That Some Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves-

What's the deal with Democrats these days? On foreign policy, other than Joe Lieberman, there's really no such thing as a "Scoop Jackson" type of Democrat. On trade, they've almost all gone "native" (as in nativist, isolationist, protectionist, etc.). On abortion, formerly pro-life Democrats who want to do well in primaries are now ardently pro-choice, and it's difficult to name a single pro-life Democrat in Congress today.

On domestic economic policy, meanwhile, Democrats have completely fallen off the cliff. When we had a Cold War going on, there were plenty of Democrats who still seemed to believe in the power of free enterprise. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the extinction of the conservative Southern Democrat, today's Howard Dean-run Democratic Party has lurched severely to the left and down into the swamps of economic illiteracy.

Indeed, there is not a single prominent Democrat today who could deign to give this speech, by President Kennedy in 1962:

A couple of excerpts:

That is the right kind of a tax cut both for your family budget and the national budget resulting from a permanent basic reform and reduction in our rate structure, a creative tax cut creating more jobs and income and eventually more revenue.

Also:

Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary. And these new jobs and new salaries can create other jobs and other salaries and more customers and more growth for an expanding American economy.

The Club For Growth blog has the entire transcript.

What's the deal, Democrats? In an era of increased global economic competition, we need to constantly strive to make America the best place on earth to do business. Democrats in the Midwest last year talked a lot about outsourcing and out-of-whack CEO pay and such, but where are the solutions? Where are the ideas to grow the economy at a rapid and sustained rate? What are the practical things we can do to beat the pants off the Chinese, economically-speaking, in the next half century?

Why is there no Democrat today who can admit, at the very least one or two of the following points:

-that President Bush's tax cuts have been good for rich, poor, and everyone in between.
-that certain tax cuts can and do pay for themselves and then some over time.
-that it is better to be on the low tax side of the scale in today's international tax competition.

While Kennedy was no free market radical by any stretch of the imagination, he did seem to grasp that cutting exorbitant tax rates was a great way to stimulate the economy and make everyone better off. Today's Democrats could learn a lot from this speech.

Previous Quotational Therapy Session:

Reagan To Parliament.

The right quote can be therapeutic, so tune in to WILLisms.com for quotational therapy on Monday and Friday.

Posted by Will Franklin · 6 April 2007 03:41 PM

Comments

Man, you're trotting out all the golden oldies.

JFK cut the top tax rate from ~90% to about ~70%. But as his own economic advisors, Walter Heller and Arthur Okun note--the cut was aimed at the demand side not supply.

Posted by: Jadegold at April 6, 2007 04:11 PM

1968 happened. Three years into a war, non-warlike countries get tired of them (Vietnam ramped up in 1965). When Johnson got clubbed by his own people for the war, the whole party shifted leftward. As the leftism was more of a fashion accessory than intellectual attainment, they began to accept all leftist positions as their default. Economics, gun control, abortion, military - anything, eventually - those Democrats who held different positions were weeded out.

Posted by: Assistant Village Idiot at April 6, 2007 05:26 PM

Guys, Jadegold is a troll that has been banned from multiple blogs. You might as well just go ahead and get out the ban stick now. He/she/it (shit? Most bloggers seem to think so) is going to get on your last nerve eventually, so save yourself some trouble, compress the schedule, and get it over with.

Over three years ago, I promised myself that if given the opportunity, I would pre-emptively ban the little twit. Since then, I have both been asked to post at Cold Fury, and forgotten my promise.

It's good to be reminded of some things.

Posted by: Randy Rager at April 6, 2007 09:11 PM

Well I don't ban trolls here, but don't expect Will Franklin to be so forgiving . . .

Posted by: Ken McCracken at April 7, 2007 02:18 AM

Randy, aren't you the same person who didn't understand the difference between astronomy and astrology?

Just a reminder...

Posted by: Jadegold at April 8, 2007 11:48 AM

The Democratic party that JFK, Truman and FDR belonged to doesn't exist anymore. If they were alive today they would have been run out of the party just like Joe Lieberman was.

Posted by: Ennis at April 10, 2007 08:31 AM