Would Democrats embrace JFK now?

[AntiChrist]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/10/19/would-jfk-never-liberal-still-find-home-democratic-party/ZrxV7lJYHrvWxOjXItAuZJ/story.html





As Democrats begin maneuvering for the 2016 presidential race, there isn’t one who would think of disparaging John F. Kennedy’s stature as a Democratic Party hero. Yet it’s a pretty safe bet that none would dream of running on Kennedy’s approach to government or embrace his political beliefs.
Today’s Democratic Party — the home of Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Al Gore — wouldn’t give the time of day to a candidate like JFK.

The 35th president was an ardent tax-cutter who championed across-the-board, top-to-bottom reductions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=I72ZTCO3NOw#t=60) in personal and corporate tax rates, slashed tariffs to promote free trade, and even spoke out against the “confiscatory” property taxes being levied in too many cities.

He was anything but a big-spending, welfare-state liberal. “I do not believe that Washington should do for the people what they can do for themselves through local and private effort,” Kennedy bluntly avowed during the 1960 campaign. One of his first acts as president was to institute a pay cut for top White House staffers, and that was only the start of his budgetary austerity. “To the surprise of many of his appointees,” longtime aide Ted Sorensen would later write (http://bit.ly/1gO3s9p), he “personally scrutinized every agency request with a cold eye and encouraged his budget director to say ‘no.’ ”

On the other hand, he was a Cold War anticommunist who aggressively increased military spending. He faulted his Republican predecessor for tailoring the nation’s military strategy to fit the budget, rather than the other way around. “We must refuse to accept a cheap, second-best defense,” JFK said during his run for the White House. He made good on that pledge, pushing defense spending to 50 percent of federal expenditures and 9 percent of GDP, both far higher than today’s levels (http://www.aboutsmallcap.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/federal-spending_12-850.jpg). Speaking in Texas just hours before his death, he proudly took credit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=FYHchIwWC2Y#t=263) for building the US military into “a defense system second to none.”

Since that terrible day in Dallas 50 years ago, popular mythology has turned Kennedy into a liberal hero. Some of that mythmaking, as journalist and historian Ira Stoll argues in a new book, “JFK, Conservative (http://amzn.to/H6aQyR),” was driven by Kennedy aides, such as Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who had always wanted their boss to be more left-leaning than he was. Some of it was fueled by the Democratic Party’s emotional connection to the memory of a martyred president, and its understandable desire to link their priorities to his legacy.

But Kennedy was no liberal. By any reasonable definition, he was a conservative — and not just by the standards of our era, but by those of his era as well.


Stoll draws on an embarrassment of riches to make his case.

When the young JFK launched his first political campaign for the US House in 1946, a profile in Look magazine homed in on his conservatism:

“When young, wealthy, and conservative John Fitzgerald Kennedy announced for Congress, many people wondered why,” it began. “Hardly a liberal even by his own standards, Kennedy is mainly concerned by what appears to him as the coming struggle between collectivism and capitalism. In speech after speech he charges his audience ‘to battle for the old ideas with the same enthusiasm that people have for new ideas.’ ”

He hadn’t changed his political stripes by the time he ran for the Senate in 1952, challenging incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Stoll notes that Massachusetts newspapers wanting to back a liberal in that race came out for the Republican — the Berkshire Eagle, for example, endorsed Lodge as “an invaluable voice for liberalism.” When his reelection in 1958 made it clear that Kennedy would be running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Eleanor Roosevelt was asked in a TV interview whom she would support if forced to choose “between a conservative Democrat like Kennedy and a liberal Republican [like] Rockefeller.” FDR’s widow, then as now a progressive icon, answered that she would do all she could to make sure Kennedy wouldn’t be the party’s nominee.

Many on the left felt that way about JFK. When he decided to resume nuclear testing in 1962, Bertrand Russell attacked him as “much more wicked than Hitler,” and Linus Pauling, who would receive that year’s Nobel Peace Prize, predicted that he would “go down in history as . . . one of the greatest enemies of the human race.” Left-wing intellectuals raged against Kennedy’s failed attempt to topple Fidel Castro (the renowned sociologist C. Wright Mills said the administration had “returned us to barbarism”). Liberals within the administration expressed dismay for Kennedy’s unwavering support for tax cuts. Schlesinger called one of Kennedy’s exhortations “the worst speech the president had ever given.”

Nearly 30 years ago, an essay in Mother Jones magazine asked: “Would JFK Be a Hero Now?” If the answer wasn’t obvious then, it certainly is now. In today’s political environment, a candidate like JFK — a conservative champion of economic growth, tax cuts, limited government, peace through strength — plainly would be a hero. Whether he would be a Democrat is a different matter altogether.

[boutons_deux]

JFK was an inherited-wealth East Coast Establishment 1%er.

Much like St Ronnie, he drastically cut taxes on his own wealthy ass.

America was growing like crazy in his term, because of the postwar boom, not because he cut taxes on the wealthy.

[AntiChrist]

JFK was an inherited-wealth East Coast Establishment 1%er.


Well, there you have it.

[boutons_deux]

aka, class warfare

[boutons_deux]

wealthy Dems are progressive socially but conservative tax-cuttingly, aka, class warfare.

[Wild Cobra]

It's a good point.

Democrats today would treat Kennedy almost as bad as they do Reagan.

[boutons_deux]

It's a good point.

Democrats today would treat Kennedy almost as bad as they do Reagan.

and Repug's today wouldn't let Reagan get past the primary (he raised taxes 3 times, etc, etc), and Nixon would be seen as a liberal (opening to China, tried to get a national health insurance going, EPA, OSHA, etc)

[Winehole23]

boutons with the rare on target riposte.

[boutons_deux]

boutons with the rare on target riposte.

WhineHole with the rare credit to Boutons vs his many many whiny misses.

[DMX7]

With the exception of the space program, I was never all that enamored with JFK.

[m>s]

JFK was a big fan of mein fuhrer

[MannyIsGod]

The better question is would JFK seek to enact the same polices in today's world. Politicians platforms are at least in part a reflection of the world they live in. Taxes weren't tis low in JFK's era and the military certainly isn't what it is today - either in size or capability. We certainly don't have a big bad communist bogeyman to fear, either. But I guess acknowledging all that isn't conducive to writing an editorial with a specific agenda with no grounds in reality.

[Wild Cobra]

The better question is would JFK seek to enact the same polices in today's world. Politicians platforms are at least in part a reflection of the world they live in. Taxes weren't tis low in JFK's era and the military certainly isn't what it is today - either in size or capability. We certainly don't have a big bad communist bogeyman to fear, either. But I guess acknowledging all that isn't conducive to writing an editorial with a specific agenda with no grounds in reality.
Is that in the stars?

[DMX7]

JFK was a big fan of mein fuhrer

No, he was most ceratinly not! Are you some kind of Hitler supporter? Who are you?

[m>s]

That's nonsense I'll provide links after work

[SA210]

JFK was an inherited-wealth East Coast Establishment 1%er.



:lol You mean the guy that gave up his entire Presidential salary to charity??

[m>s]

No, he was most ceratinly not! Are you some kind of Hitler supporter? Who are you?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329556/How-JFK-secretly-ADMIRED-Hitler-Explosive-book-reveals-Presidents-praise-Nazis-travelled-Germany-Second-World-War.html

[George Gervin's Afro]

Reagan would have been tea partied...

[baseline bum]

The better question is would JFK seek to enact the same polices in today's world. Politicians platforms are at least in part a reflection of the world they live in. Taxes weren't tis low in JFK's era and the military certainly isn't what it is today - either in size or capability. We certainly don't have a big bad communist bogeyman to fear, either. But I guess acknowledging all that isn't conducive to writing an editorial with a specific agenda with no grounds in reality.

This. Tax rates were obscenely high on the rich in that era and we were trying to break the Soviet Union. Plus a lot of military R&D went into the space program. I can't fucking believe how short-sighted we are with science spending now, especially with the supercollider that would have made the Dallas area the world center for physics research. I just hope we find a way to get the Webb funded and put in space so we can look into star factories like the Orion nebula in the IR spectrum.

[boutons_deux]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Historical_Mariginal_Tax_Rate_for_Highest_and_Lowe st_Income_Earners.jpg


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Mariginal_Tax_Rate_for_Highest_and _Lowest_Income_Earners.jpg

[ElNono]

The notion of Kennedy as tax-cutting hero dates at least to the 1970s, when then Rep. Jack Kemp was writing the tax-cut legislation that Reagan would sign in 1981. Since then, political ads contrasting clips of JFK advocating tax cuts with the target Democrat of the moment have appeared regularly. See, for example, Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Linda McMahon in Connecticut last year.

The argument that JFK's economic policies are more closely aligned with the modern GOP than Democrats is doubly attractive for conservatives. They can paint their tax cut-centric policies as having a rich bipartisan past abandoned by the modern left—and tweak liberals by absconding with one of their icons.

The notion of Kennedy as supply-side forerunner is a powerful myth, but it is a myth. Context is key. Conservatives love to quote a speech Kennedy gave at the Economic Club of New York in December 1962. Here's one quote—I've italicized the crucial part often left out: "Our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking." JFK was not expounding an implacable economic philosophy; he was speaking about a very specific circumstance. The top marginal tax rate was 91 percent, which JFK wanted reduced to a "more sensible" 65 percent. Compare that with today's 35 percent top rate, and ask: If supply-siders are so enamored of JFK's tax policies, would they advocate a return to a "more sensible" 65 percent top rate? Applying Kennedy's tax talk to the current structure, JFK biographer Robert Dallek says, is like comparing "apples and watermelons."

The Myth of JFK as Supply Side Tax Cutter (http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/01/26/the-myth-of-jfk-as-supply-side-tax-cutter)

[boutons_deux]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Historical_Mariginal_Tax_Rate_for_Highest_and_Lowe st_Income_Earners.jpg


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Mariginal_Tax_Rate_for_Highest_and _Lowest_Income_Earners.jpg

note that from 1945 - 1975 when marginal tax rates were high, US growth was fantastic, and wealth distributed much evenly than the horrible inequality now.

note also how VRWC's St Ronnie cut the tax rate on the highest while raising it on the lowest.

[baseline bum]

note that from 1945 - 1975 when marginal tax rates were high, US growth was fantastic, and wealth distributed much evenly than the horrible inequality now.

note also how VRWC's St Ronnie cut the tax rate on the highest while raising it on the lowest.

There was also that thing about the rest of the first world being in ruins after the Great Patriotic War.

[m>s]

There was also that thing about the rest of the first world being in ruins after the Great Patriotic War.
It's all the fault of the British and French assholes

[boutons_deux]

There was also that thing about the rest of the first world being in ruins after the Great Patriotic War.

ok, if you can show that the rest of the world had enough $Ts to buy USA exports

[Wild Cobra]

note that from 1945 - 1975 when marginal tax rates were high, US growth was fantastic, and wealth distributed much evenly than the horrible inequality now.

note also how VRWC's St Ronnie cut the tax rate on the highest while raising it on the lowest.
OMG B-Shit... Once again, you believe liberal lies, hook line and sinker, and never verify the bullshit you regurgitate.

I suggest you look at the tax table structure for that 1976 to 1987 timeframe. Who ever put that graph together is either in intellectual liar, or stupid shithead that doesn't know how the tax calculation method has changed over the years.

Here is the referenced data your graph comes from:

link: Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History; Nominal Dollars; Income Years 1913-2013 (http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/fed_individual_rate_history_nominal.pdf)

Here is the example of the 1980 tax form; link: 1980 form 1040A (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/i1040a--1980.pdf)

If you look at page 15, you will see an added column for watch dependent, and standard deduction included in the tax table. However, where your graph shows zero percent, it is at the same 14% rate as in 1976.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

OMG B-Shit... Once again, you believe liberal lies, hook line and sinker, and never verify the bullshit you regurgitate.

I suggest you look at the tax table structure for that 1976 to 1987 timeframe. Who ever put that graph together is either in intellectual liar, or stupid shithead that doesn't know how the tax calculation method has changed over the years.

Here is the referenced data your graph comes from:

link: Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History; Nominal Dollars; Income Years 1913-2013 (http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/fed_individual_rate_history_nominal.pdf)

Here is the example of the 1980 tax form; link: 1980 form 1040A (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/i1040a--1980.pdf)

If you look at page 15, you will see an added column for watch dependent, and standard deduction included in the tax table. However, where your graph shows zero percent, it is at the same 14% rate as in 1976.

What do marginal mean?

[ElNono]

What do marginal mean?

:lmao

[exstatic]

Reagan would have been tea partied...

This.

[exstatic]

There was also that thing about the rest of the first world being in ruins after the Great Patriotic War.

:lol Not until 1975. Shit, Europe was probably rebuilt in 10 years.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Reagan would have been tea partied...

The notion that Reagan was some level headed moderate who couldn't survive in the tea party is such a crock of shit...

imjL8dfJVkA

[ElNono]

It's all hindsight... if you look at Reagan *after* he governed, you would think he wouldn't survive a primary nowadays.

What Reagan said and did are two very different things (not unlike most politicians).

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

It's all hindsight... if you look at Reagan *after* he governed, you would think he wouldn't survive a primary nowadays.

What Reagan said and did are two very different things (not unlike most politicians).

The reasons he raised taxes (to fund the MIC with his star wars program) are reasons the tea party would get behind :lol, they love themselves some military spending (hence their support for Bush and Romney).

[ElNono]

The reasons he raised taxes (to fund the MIC with his star wars program) are reasons the tea party would get behind :lol, they love themselves some military spending (hence their support for Bush and Romney).

Well, I think the teapotties would actually be much less upset if the prez wouldn't be a kenyan ni**er...

But when you look at Reagan, that government absolutely kills the ':cry government too big :cry' and ':cry that debt is going to sink your grandchildren :cry' memes...

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Well, I think the teapotties would actually be much less upset if the prez wouldn't be a kenyan ni**er...

But when you look at Reagan, that government absolutely kills the ':cry government too big :cry' and ':cry that debt is going to sink your grandchildren :cry' memes...
:lol by that logic the tea party also hates George W. Bush because of medicare part D and his deficit spending

:lol we both know they only hate deficit spending when it's convenient for them

[ElNono]

:lol by that logic the tea party also hates George W. Bush because of medicare part D and his deficit spending

:lol we both know they only hate deficit spending when it's convenient for them

IIRC, I've seen dubya labeled as a RINO... which is odd, because he was from Texas, a bastion of the Southerners....

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

IIRC, I've seen dubya labeled as a RINO... which is odd, because he was from Texas, a bastion of the Southerners....

It's also odd people would label Bush a RINO after making him a two term Republican president :lol

[ElNono]

It's also odd people would label Bush a RINO after making him a two term Republican president :lol

They didn't know politicians were crooked until circa 2008... :lol

[boutons_deux]

It's also odd people would label Bush a RINO after making him a two term Republican president :lol

he won 2nd term with the smallest margin ever for an incumbent.

The sheeple were suckered, with coporate press compliance, with "don't change presidents while in a war". Dubya/dickhead's LIES and bogus Iraq war were actually part of their 2nd term campaign. Re-Elect the lying, flight-suit-faker Useful Idiot, he's A War President.

St Ronnie doubled the national debt, dubya/dickhead tripled it, which is why the Repugs/VWRC campaign on the defict and debt is so totally dishonest, bogus.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

he won 2nd term with the smallest margin ever for an incumbent.

The sheeple were suckered, with coporate press compliance, with "don't change presidents while in a war". Dubya/dickhead's LIES and bogus Iraq war were actually part of their 2nd term campaign. Re-Elect the lying, flight-suit-faker Useful Idiot, he's A War President.

St Ronnie doubled the national debt, dubya/dickhead tripled it, which is why the Repugs/VWRC campaign on the defict and debt is so totally dishonest, bogus.

:lol the MSM bullshit from a leftist is even more amusing than from the right.

[boutons_deux]

:lol the MSM bullshit from a leftist is even more amusing than from the right.

Fuzzy's butthurt by the all bitch slappings Boutons lays on him

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Fuzzy's butthurt by the all bitch slappings Boutons lays on him

Does this make you feel better to say that? You sound like that Skull-1 guy and sbm coming with that shit.

We established that you see the world circumstance as does Marx and that you support his economic policies. You just do not agree with the violent overthrow of the government. That last part is not a 'bitch slap' although it is interesting the weird shit people come up with so as to prop their worldview.

Most of our other discourses have been me trying to get you to change your approach mostly in the labels that you use to describe 3rd parties so as to get people to take you seriously. That normally gets your 'gfy' response. That isn't a bitch slap. That is more like pouting.

Here you sound like Sean Hannitty, Rush Limbaugh and most of the other 'conservatives' when they blame the media for their political failings. It is what it is. Saying that you bitch slapped me isnt going to change that.

[101A]

:lol by that logic the tea party also hates George W. Bush because of medicare part D and his deficit spending

:lol we both know they only hate deficit spending when it's convenient for them

The tea party was born in large part BECAUSE of Bush, and his late term bail-out-a-rama.

You are revising history; getting Republicans/Neocons/Tea Partiers all mixed up with each other....

[boutons_deux]

The tea party was born in large part BECAUSE of Bush, and his late term bail-out-a-rama.

You are revising history; getting Republicans/Neocons/Tea Partiers all mixed up with each other....

You are inventing history.

The tea bagger bowel movement was born after that terrorist, Muslim N!gg@ took over the WH in Jan 09. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#History

[AntiChrist]

Well, I think the teapotties would actually be much less upset if the prez wouldn't be a kenyan ni**er...




You are inventing history.

The tea bagger bowel movement was born after that terrorist, Muslim N!gg@ took over the WH in Jan 09. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#History



Lol, the Obama-era version of Godwin's law.

[boutons_deux]

Lol, the Obama-era version of Godwin's law.

there are several fundamental energy sources in the tea bagger movement (basically old white Confederate guys)

racism: against blacks (basically the Confederacy still fighting the War of Northern Aggression)

xenophobia: against brown immigrants, and even brown citizens

Christian intolerant supremacy: against anybody whose not Christian, anybody whose not heterosexual.

anti-govt: again, the Confederacy still fighting the War of Northern (D.C.) Aggression.

[AntiChrist]

there are several fundamental energy sources in the tea bagger movement (basically old white Confederate guys)

racism: against blacks (basically the Confederacy still fighting the War of Northern Aggression)

xenophobia: against brown immigrants, and even brown citizens

Christian intolerant supremacy: against anybody whose not Christian, anybody whose not heterosexual.

anti-govt: again, the Confederacy still fighting the War of Northern (D.C.) Aggression.


You are like a cartoon character, but, interestingly enough, you are just repeating what is parroted on MSNBC, daily.

[boutons_deux]

You are like a cartoon character, but, interestingly enough, you are just repeating what is parroted on MSNBC, daily.

:lol says the light-weight poster with the IQ of Fox viewer

[ElNono]

Lol, the Obama-era version of Godwin's law.

Look at the racial makeup of gerrymandered districts and get back to me.

(and preemptively, this isn't about who does gerrymandering, both teams do, but what's the racial makeup).

The GOP base being largely a group of old, white people shouldn't be any big revelation. It might not be politically correct to say it, but it is what it is. The tea potties happen to be the angrier of the group.

[Wild Cobra]

It's also odd people would label Bush a RINO after making him a two term Republican president :lol
Are you suggesting that Gore or sKerry were the lesser of evils?

[boutons_deux]

Are you suggesting that Gore or sKerry were the lesser of evils?

I'm pretty sure Gore's WH and DoD would not have invaded Iraq, so yes, Gore won the American people but lost to SCOTUS, and would have been better than dubya, dickhead, rummy, rice, and all the blood/oil-thirsty PNAC assholes.

[Wild Cobra]

I'm pretty sure Gore's WH and DoD would not have invaded Iraq, so yes, Gore won the American people but lost to SCOTUS, and would have been better than dubya, dickhead, rummy, rice, and all the blood/oil-thirsty PNAC assholes.
Well, our opinions differ on who the lesser evil is. I'll bet Gore would have invaded Iraq as well. You do remember don't you that in the senate, the vote was 77-23 and 296-133 in the house, right?

Demonrats are real two-faced. Remember this?

9JE48XHKG64


fFBl0fnMUVc


0h6gehCPvpk


457jp8VGhEE

[boutons_deux]

Well, our opinions differ on who the lesser evil is. I'll bet Gore would have invaded Iraq as well. You do remember don't you that in the senate, the vote was 77-23 and 296-133 in the house, right?

Demonrats are real two-faced. Remember this?

9JE48XHKG64

the WH LIED to Congress and the world, and bullied votes out of Congress.

I really doubt Gore would have overridden NSA/CIA doubts about Iraq WMD, nor would he have cherry picked then hyped intelligence to falsify a case for war.

[Wild Cobra]

Too bad you have no evidence they lied. That's just a slogan that libtards believe.

Sorry, I edited the post and added three more.

If Bush lied, then so did Clinton and Gore.

[Winehole23]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/kennedy-was-no-conservative/

[boutons_deux]

Too bad you have no evidence they lied. That's just a slogan that libtards believe.

Sorry, I edited the post and added three more.

If Bush lied, then so did Clinton and Gore.

dubya/dickhead/neocons ALL LIED, BULLIED EVERYBODY, and INVADED IRAQ, Dems didn't.

[Wild Cobra]

dubya/dickhead/neocons ALL LIED, BULLIED EVERYBODY, and INVADED IRAQ, Dems didn't.
LOL...

Seriously?

N5p-qIq32m8


i87cZ3Og6ts

[boutons_deux]

LOL...

Seriously?



seriously, dubya/dickhead/neocons ALL LIED, BULLIED EVERYBODY, and INVADED IRAQ, Dems didn't.

[Nbadan]

seriously, dubya/dickhead/neocons ALL LIED, BULLIED EVERYBODY, and INVADED IRAQ, Dems didn't.

That's the bottom line...The Democrats used rhetoric and the GOP, led by the Neocons, who were also responsible for the Vietnam war after they took advantage of the Kennedy assassination, invaded Iraq, A country that ironically hated Bin Laden and what the US terms Al-Queda because they were pro-Sunni and had nothing to do with the 911 attacks on the US....