JFK

ATR today released a video showing the tax policy contrast of President John F. Kennedy and current Democrat nominee Joe Biden.

Quotations in the video are as follows:

JFK: “Such a bill will be presented to the congress for action next year. It will include an across the board, top to bottom cut in both corporate and personal income taxes.”

Biden: “Guess what, if you elect me your taxes are going to be raised not cut.”

JFK: “Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital.”

Biden: “I would raise the corporate tax.” “Raise the corporate tax rate from 20 to 28 percent.”

JFK: “For all these reasons, next year’s tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes. For those in the lower brackets who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital.”

Biden: “I’m going to double the capital gains rate to 40 percent.” “So every single solitary person, their capital gains are going to be treated like real income and they are gonna pay 40% on their capital gains tax.”

JFK: “To achieve these greater gains, one step above all is essential. The enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in federal income taxes.”

Biden: “Guess what? First thing I’m gonna do is repeal that Trump tax cut. Oh not a joke.”

For details on JFK’s tax-cutting policies, see the book JFK, Conservative authored by Ira Stoll.

Also note the 2012 Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Amity Shlaes, excerpted below:

Heller’s successful plan to combat the recession of the early 1960s was the Kennedy-Johnson tax cuts, which pushed the unemployment rate below 5% and the growth rate above 5% from 2%. Crucially, the administration’s marketing pitch didn’t talk about “fairness” but about competition. In the 1963 State of the Union Address, for example, Kennedy spoke about obstacles that “undercut our efforts to compete with other nations.” He called “one step, above all, essential” to solve the problem: “the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in federal income taxes.”

Heller and Kennedy recognized that taxation (not only growth) is all about competition. Cities compete with cities, counties with counties, states with states, and nations with nations. These natural experiments run in real time.

Click below to watch the video: