Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s exit from the Democratic Party (or was he booted out?) is only the latest sign that there are no more JFK Democrats left in positions of power in the Democratic Party.
President John F. Kennedy was a staunch anti-communist who fought against union and government corruption. He was a pro-life Catholic. He was laser-focused on faster growth (“we can do bettah”) and saw sweeping tax rate reductions as a step toward achieving 4% to 5% growth.
Democrats are now for higher taxes: They ignore and excuse union and government corruption and they don’t even talk about growth. It is all income redistribution.
They should listen to the words of wisdom of JFK circa 1960 to 1963. In 1962, he famously declared: “It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”
Sadly, today you could count on one hand the number of Democrats in Washington who believe that. JFK called for a reduction in income tax and capital gains taxes. Kamala Harris wants to raise every one of these rates — including doubling capital gains taxes.
Which brings me to RFK Jr. I don’t agree with many of the positions that he takes, but he is right that the party undemocratically excised him from the ballot in many states. He is right about the incestuous relationship between big government and big business.
At a dinner party, I recently asked him about tax policy.
“I learned from my uncle [JFK] that cutting taxes increases prosperity,” he replied.
Harris has never learned that lesson. She should take note. After the JFK tax cuts — from as high as 90% to 70% and a 30% capital gains tax reduction by 30%, the economy boomed and tax revenues soared. The budget was balanced.
Harris and my Democratic friends should educate themselves by reading Larry Kudlow and Brian Domitrovic’s wonderful book, “JFK and the Reagan Revolution.”
That book also shows that tax revenues rose after the Reagan tax cuts, which were modeled after the JFK plan. What was remarkable about both these historical events is that the share of taxes paid by the rich rose after tax rates were cut. That was the “paradoxical truth” that JFK foresaw.
JFK also was famous for talking about “a rising tide of prosperity to raise all boats.” That’s far different from the “soak the rich” message of Democrats today.
RFK Jr. was right that he hasn’t left the Democratic Party. The party has left him. And it has sadly left behind the policy legacy of his famous uncle — who also would likely be a Republican today.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic advisor to Donald Trump. His latest book is: “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”
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I honestly don’t believe there’s REALLY EVER BEEN any JFK like democrats since the late 60s..
The first JKF Kennedy Democrat that got out of the party was JFK himself when some party socialists took over and some entitlement apparatchik started asking, what their country could do for themselves instead of what they could do for their country. RFK Jr is the last to leave just like his father, when gunned down in the prime of his life, in the midst of a critical campaign primary, by Pelosi and Biden,,,the current day version of a Lee Harvey Oswald, and Sirhan, Sirhan treacherous tag team of a cancerous killer skin tagger and a puss laden Hors D’ Ovarian cyst. Joe himselvf now plays the part of a sacrificial lamb Oswald who himself got gunned down before he could talk where an aging brain replaces a crosshaired bullet used to get the job done. If I were 80-year-old Sirhan, Sirhan, I’d cling to my prison bed and pray that the next person to visit me wasn’t someone from an Arkansas dirt farm. I hear he was about to be released from prison in California on the recommendation of former democrat D.A. Kamala, right before the election, but lost his opportunity for new heat packing paid employment when RFK Jr bowed out.
I’ll bet that the Walther PPK Sirhan used to shoot RFK Sr, probably a collector’s item now in the hands of some American Dem SOCIALIST FBI gun collector, and has plenty of National SOCIALIST party leader Eagles and Swastica engravings, most probably broke in around Parts of east Russian or Ukraine in the early 1940s by an SS Einsatzgruppen exterminator with plenty of bad Kamala-like Karma, who similarly gunned down Joe and tossed him into the trenches. The subsequent usual democrat liberal response to the RFK assassination was to blame and ban the importation of the gun, not the socialist or middle east ideology of the killer. All easily concealed pre 1945 WWII PPK’s got exterminated from import, but the killer Sirhan is still here and is alive and well today. The lesson to be learned, was to never bring a big Black Powerful Professional football player like Rosey Greer as your protector to a gun fight, who watched helplessly as the 110-pound Sirhan blazed away at RFK. I’ll bet big money that to this day Jr is registered to carry.
Robert F. Kenndey Jr. Democrat, Dropped out of the Race for – President and Endorsed Republican, Donald Trump for President.