Trump Is The New JFK

[Jonah]

Equating Dan Quayle and Reagan with JFK on tax policy and economic stimulus lacks historical context. Quayle and Reagan were supply-siders while Kennedy was a committed Keynesian.

Quayle wanted a top marginal tax rate of 28% in the post Reagan 1980s. Kennedy wanted the top marginal tax rate to be no less than 65%; a massive difference in both tax rate and economic philosophy. Quayle was for near flat tax rates while JFK wanted high and very progressive tax rates for the top tiers of income.

The reason JFK gets lumped with supply-siders like Reagan and Quayle is because JFK cut the top tax rate from 91% imposed under FDR to his preferred 65%. Admittedly, a substantial cut. However, the 91% rate was always intended to be temporary to help restrain growth during the post WWII boom. By the 1960s it was seen by most Keynesian economists as too steep. Since the post-war boom was over, Kennedy saw it as a good opportunity to cut the rate, boost the economy, and most importantly, make 65% the permanent top rate.

 

[babe]

Equating Dan Quayle and Reagan with JFK on tax policy and economic stimulus lacks historical context. Quayle and Reagan were supply-siders while Kennedy was a committed Keynesian.

Quayle wanted a top marginal tax rate of 28% in the post Reagan 1980s. Kennedy wanted the top marginal tax rate to be no less than 65%; a massive difference in both tax rate and economic philosophy. Quayle was for near flat tax rates while JFK wanted high and very progressive tax rates for the top tiers of income.

The reason JFK gets lumped with supply-siders like Reagan and Quayle is because JFK cut the top tax rate from 91% imposed under FDR to his preferred 65%. Admittedly, a substantial cut. However, the 91% rate was always intended to be temporary to help restrain growth during the post WWII boom. By the 1960s it was seen by most Keynesian economists as too steep. Since the post-war boom was over, Kennedy saw it as a good opportunity to cut the rate, boost the economy, and most importantly, make 65% the permanent top rate.

I don't know enough about it all to evaluate this explanation. It sounds like you do. Sure we all can google and learn more about it, but could you give up a little help on the sources for this knowledge? I like this kind of discussion.

 

[Jonah]

I don't know enough about it all to evaluate this explanation. It sounds like you do. Sure we all can google and learn more about it, but could you give up a little help on the sources for this knowledge? I like this kind of discussion.

A good place to start would be reading articles about or books by the advisors and economists who shaped Reagan and JFK's tax policies and influenced their economic philosophy. David Stockman and Arthur Laffer specifically and Milton Friedman more generally for Reagan. In sharp contrast would be John Kenneth Galbraith and Walter Heller for Kennedy. Galbraith was a friend and mentor to JFK, a life-long Keynesian, as well as an influential advisor to both FDR and LBJ. The vast difference in philosophy between Friedman and Galbraith is a good mirror for the different economic policy outlooks of Reagan and JFK.

As to the specific point of JFK being misinterpreted as a supply-sider, here is a good summarizing article:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/01/26/the-myth-of-jfk-as-supply-side-tax-cutter

 

[babe]

A good place to start would be reading articles about or books by the advisors and economists who shaped Reagan and JFK's tax policies and influenced their economic philosophy. David Stockman and Arthur Laffer specifically and Milton Friedman more generally for Reagan. In sharp contrast would be John Kenneth Galbraith and Walter Heller for Kennedy. Galbraith was a friend and mentor to JFK, a life-long Keynesian, as well as an influential advisor to both FDR and LBJ. The vast difference in philosophy between Friedman and Galbraith is a good mirror for the different economic policy outlooks of Reagan and JFK.

As to the specific point of JFK being misinterpreted as a supply-sider, here is a good summarizing article:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/01/26/the-myth-of-jfk-as-supply-side-tax-cutter

I am doing the whole pos rep, like, and thanks for this post, because it is relevant and contributes to the discussion I'm attempting to lead.

I read it, all through. I read John Kenneth Galbraith way back when, in the sixties, along with Milton Friedman. My wife is a huge Milton Friedman fan, having been literally raised on that by her father. Hence, is a solid Republican. I have brought a link to this thread from a very socialist group, the LaRouche Political Action Committee. People I talk to sometimes, largely because I believe a responsible nation or intelligent citizenry should undertake programs like Science drivers and infrastructure projects that will benefit mankind and make life more efficient.

Can you conceive of doing business without an Intestate System, with Eisenhower's great program for a system of highways that would bring people functionally closer by days of travel time, as well as make an efficient system for self-defense that would greatly speed up our response capacity to any invasion anywhere on our borders?

The reason the LPAC is following Trump around on his post-election campaign trail with their signage is because Trump is not a conservative in this regard. He probably isn't intellectually committed to supply side theory, he just has the gut instinct that we need to do stuff that will make life better, as a nation.

 

[b_line]

look at your fist, one finger pointing at me, three pointing at you. I'd say three against one you're the pretentious moron lording it over the whole world with political judgments. But hey, you've got a little cell of allies in this little corner of the webz, you're good, right.

Right.

The difference between you and I is I know I am a moron. You think you are the smartest person on earth because you have driven through Nevada a million times and listened to the AM radio. Good for you.

 

[b_line]

Here's some more on Dan Quayle. The article shows he was a pretty effective Vice President and a big help the George HW Bush. Significantly, he tried to talk George HW outta his biggest political blunder, one that cost him the 1992 election.

https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2017/01/17/reassessment-dan-quayle-vice-president/96670656/

So, no thanks to our yellow lying media, Quayle and Bush won the election anyway, and Quayle did a good job for the conservatives in the Republican Party.

Here is a joke for you: Why wouldn't they let dogs in the white house back then?

 

[b_line]

I actually really like GHW Bush. I think he was a great president. It's unfortunate that we didn't get him for 8 years, but I blame that more on Perot than I do his policies. Of course, I was young then so I was not aware of a lot of things politically speaking. I did like Ross Perot, and I ended up really liking Clinton. There have been two people in my lifetime that have been president or VP that I have not liked, and they are Trump and Cheney. Pence is borderline, but I at least see where he is coming from. I think Trump and Cheney do not or did not have our best interests at heart as a country.

 

[b_line]

Here is a joke for you: Why wouldn't they let dogs in the white house back then?

the dogs would pee on bush and chase away the quail.

 

[babe]

I actually really like GHW Bush. I think he was a great president. It's unfortunate that we didn't get him for 8 years, but I blame that more on Perot than I do his policies. Of course, I was young then so I was not aware of a lot of things politically speaking. I did like Ross Perot, and I ended up really liking Clinton. There have been two people in my lifetime that have been president or VP that I have not liked, and they are Trump and Cheney. Pence is borderline, but I at least see where he is coming from. I think Trump and Cheney do not or did not have our best interests at heart as a country.

This sort of opinion is solid American contemporary. You and oh 70% of Americans. But I think Trump is plastic, not just in the sense of phoney not the real thing if that's the way you'd think, but open to molding and adjusting if people will work with him. He could be a unifying President, and he could make things better.

For example, when he decided to run for the Presidency, the first things he did including going to meet with the chief of the CFR in New York, essentially seeking support and outlining things he thought are important for us a country. And he called the Clintons to talk to them.

Yes, I think he disagrees with the agenda to rachet America down to a mere member state of the world community on par with oh ten other larger countries, and he is apparently wanting to continue industrialization and access to resources.

The Rockefeller plan basically involves putting earth's resources in some kind of long-term rationed use schema that does limit the players with access to them, and does/will maintain his own and others' current cartel dominance and price-determining positions.

John D. Rockefeller very early on was a cartelist, who used market dominance tactics of buying out competitors and just mothballing their operations to support higher prices. It has been a fundamental theorem of globalism that we are over-using resources and we need to reduce population and demand for stuff. The Environmentalist sort are playing for that team.

I believe we don't have enough people to move up to the kind of technological system we really need. I think that is entirely compatible with taking care of the Earth and being good stewards over resources. It takes people with high skills to move up from the cave dweller lifestyle we have now.

I think Trump could be moved in the directions I think will be beneficial long-term. He opens us up to some real discussions about better ways to do things. It's time for the CFR and any other politically interested group to just get constructive and enter the discussion rationally and civilly.