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Posted on 06/10/2015 11:48:26 AM PDT by SoConPubbie
Campaigning in Andover, Mass., recently, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas invoked John F. Kennedy.
“One of the most powerful, eloquent defenders of tax cuts was John F. Kennedy,” Cruz said, breaking into an impersonation of JFK, complete with a Boston accent. “As JFK said, ‘Some men see things as they ahh and ask why. I see things that never wahh and ask, why not?’”
“JFK would be a Republican today,” Cruz said. “There is no room for John F. Kennedys in the modern Democratic Party.”
Cruz returned to the JFK theme later in the same speech. This time his subject wasn’t taxes, but religious freedom. “I gave a speech on the Senate floor in defense of religious liberty. Next to me was a giant poster of JFK…JFK said I will not stand with someone who will not stand with religious liberty.”
Cruz’s JFK remarks triggered press coverage in the Boston Globe, at Buzzfeed, and at The Washington Post.
MSNBC even devoted an entire blog post to trying, lamely, to rebut Cruz’s argument about JFK, describing it as “ridiculous.”
As the author of JFK, Conservative, I know more than a little bit about this, and I confess it is satisfying to see the argument in the book I wrote surfacing on the presidential campaign trail.
Previous successful Republican presidential candidates, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, have positioned themselves in campaign speeches as heirs to Kennedy, so Cruz’s comments have a precedent. Back then, too, it drove the left nuts. Said Reagan, campaigning in Warren, Michigan, on October 10, 1984, “Whenever I talk about Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Harry Truman or John F. Kennedy, my opponents start tearing their hair out. They just can’t stand it. Well, of course they can’t because it highlights how far they, the leadership today of the Democratic Party, have strayed from the strength of the democratic political tradition.”
Since it’s become a point of contention, it’s worth remembering some of the details. MSNBC notes that the 65 percent top income tax bracket Kennedy proposed “is still far higher than today’s 39.6%.” That is true. But it’s also true that Kennedy proposed to lower the top long-term capital gains tax rate to 19.5 percent, which is lower than the 23.8 top rate that now obtains. And it’s also true that Kennedy’s Treasury secretary, Douglas Dillon, a Republican, predicted further tax cuts in the future, especially after the Cold War ended.
MSNBC claims the Kennedy tax cut was “rooted in Keynesian economics.” But many Keynesians at the time, from John Kenneth Galbraith to Albert Gore Sr. to Arthur Goldberg, opposed tax cuts, preferring increased government spending to stimulate the economy. If there was to be a tax cut, the Keynesians favored a “quickie,” temporary one that would phase out as soon as the economy improved. President Kennedy instead favored a tax cut along classic supply-side lines, one that would permanently improve “incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking.”
With his Andover speech, Cruz staked an initial claim to being the Republican best able to carry on JFK’s optimistic, pro-growth policy agenda and underlying vision. He talked about taxes and religious liberty, but there are plenty of other areas where JFK’s legacy is relevant, from the dollar to free trade to welfare reform to foreign policy.
The question as the campaign proceeds will be which other candidates will look to President Kennedy as a source of ideas and inspiration, and whether any of the others will be as vocal about it as Senator Cruz has been. More of this, and by next November even Hillary Clinton may trying to style herself as a John F. Kennedy Democrat.
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Ted Cruz Ping! I hope not. I’d rather him channel Reagan and Coolidge.
Global corporate fascism is ObamaTrade.
ObamaTrade is Keynesian.
Cruz supports ObamaTrade.
Thus, Cruz is a Keynesian.
RFK said that, not JFK.
I don’t like this game that republicans play with JFK, but I guess it is useful, Rush does it, and the democrats do it with Lincoln.
The election of JFK was the end of America, Vietnam, the 60s, LBJ, government unions, and the fatal pill of immigration.
“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s.
In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960.
In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin.
After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.”
Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”
Oh lookie here, a n00b who hates Cruz.
Oh woe is us.
He is doing what Reagan did. He is appealing to Reagan Democrats by identifying with the tax cuts made by JFK, a policy also supported by Reagan and many Democrats of that time.
Have a very definite memory of who said that. Ted or someone for him did some bad research. Was not particularly inspired by RFK, either.
You were never going to vote for Cruz anyway and obviously know less than nothing about him. Anyone who does know what Cruz supports knows you are a Lame troll.
Fools say stupid things.
What you said is stupid.
Therefore, you are a fool.
There, solved it.
Your support for ObamaTrade is sickening.
When asked about unions in Michigan he wisely said that union members are individuals and that they understand how the taxation and regulation are harming them along with everyone else.
Very Reaganesque.
Cruz supports ObamaTrade.
ObamaTrade is an untreatable disease that will kill the hard-working middle-class of America.
Thus, I do not support Cruz anymore.
Not nearly as sickening as that Hillary running down your chin.
Hillary has dementia due to the bumps on her head from falling down so much.
Naaa, I’m a concussion-free voter.
You come across as a seriously messed up dude. You need professional help. At the very least you need to learn how to play better with others.
My mother won’t allow the neighborhood bully, ObamaTrade, to play with me in my sandbox.
Something about being kicked in the face with sand that really stings the eyes, you know?
So, Kennedy was the great tax cutter. Problem was his tax cuts did not go in until 1964.
Anyone see an issue with that? His economic principals were more traditional and inheriting a recession from Eisenhower (who by the way screwed Nixon because he chose not to do anything fiscally to help Nixon) forced Kennedy to make some hard choices.
When you look at what Kennedy did to help pull the country out of its doldrums, it was US Steel that forced Kennedy’s hand. They were going to raise prices and send the stock market into a crash. In addition, with unemployment hovering at 7%, Kennedy’s only option was to give in to US Steel.
So along with that came tax cuts to businesses and individuals. One thing about the move by Kennedy. It went against his fiscal advisors advice to adopt Keynesian economic policies and save the country. That thinking by Kennedy is what made him a Conservative.
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