Here’s a clever video produced by the Winston Group, comparing the tax policies of two Democratic Presidents. Having previously highlighted Kennedy’s tax-cutting approach, it is painful for me to observe the class warfare approach of the Obama Administration.
What’s especially fascinating is that JFK intuitively understood the Laffer Curve, particularly the insight that deficits usually are the result of slow growth, not the cause of slow growth.
International Liberty 
[…] in 2010, I shared a comparison of Obama and JFK on tax policy. For an update, here’s a comparison of Biden’s class-warfare […]
[…] in 2010, I shared a comparison of Obama and JFK on tax policy. For an update, here’s a comparison of Biden’s class-warfare […]
[…] in 2010, I shared a comparison of Obama and JFK on tax policy. For an update, here’s a comparison of Biden’s class-warfare […]
[…] in 2010, I shared a comparison of Obama and JFK on tax policy. For an update, here’s a comparison of Biden’s class-warfare […]
[…] in 2010, I shared a comparison of Obama and JFK on tax policy. For an update, here’s a comparison of Biden’s […]
[…] what it’s worth, JFK wasn’t just sensible on capital gains taxation. He had a much better overall grasp of tax policy that many of his […]
[…] what it’s worth, JFK wasn’t just sensible on capital gains taxation. He had a much better overall grasp of tax policy that many of his […]
[…] For a politician, Mr. Browne has a good understanding of economics. I don’t like the “money in the pockets” rhetoric because it implies a bit of Keynesianism, but everything else he said is based on solid, microeconomic observations about incentives. Very reminiscent of JFK. […]
[…] For a politician, Mr. Browne has a good understanding of economics. I don’t like the “money in the pockets” rhetoric because it implies a bit of Keynesianism, but everything else he said is based on solid, microeconomic observations about incentives. Very reminiscent of JFK. […]
[…] a video featuring some of President Kennedy’s wisdom on lower tax […]
[…] P.P.S. In my lifetime, there’s been a Democratic President with sensible views on tax policy. […]
[…] P.P.S. In my lifetime, there’s been a Democratic President with sensible views on tax policy. […]
[…] Too bad there are no longer Democrats like John F. Kennedy, who wanted growth rather than redistribution. […]
[…] than my ongoing adulation for Ronald Reagan, occasional praise for Calvin Coolidge, and one post about John F. Kennedy, I don’t have many nice things to say about previous […]
[…] than my ongoing adulation for Ronald Reagan, occasional praise for Calvin Coolidge, and one post about John F. Kennedy, I don’t have many nice things to say about previous […]
[…] than my ongoing adulation for Ronald Reagan, occasional praise for Calvin Coolidge, and one post about John F. Kennedy, I don’t have many nice things to say about previous […]
[…] than my ongoing adulation for Ronald Reagan, occasional praise for Calvin Coolidge, and one post about John F. Kennedy, I don’t have many nice things to say about previous […]
[…] bad there are no longer Democrats like John F. Kennedy, who wanted growth rather than redistribution. LD_AddCustomAttr("AdOpt", "1"); LD_AddCustomAttr("Origin", "other"); […]
[…] via International Liberty […]
But here is just a simpler way to see essentially the same thing:
In our current economic and legislative environment
A) Productive people have sensed that they will be increasingly painted as the villains of our society unless they eagerly surrender an ever increasing share of their labor with others. And they know that willing or not, an ever larger proportion of their efforts will be confiscated to serve others through inefficient government spending. Therefore, at the margin, these most productive of people, are working a little less hard these days.
Meanwhile
B) a sizable portion of the less productive believe that “hope and change” will deliver some results, (even if through inherently inefficient government management) and thus they too are working a little less hard these days.
Perhaps macroeconomists can play a few more tricks shifting money from one pocket to the other and temporarily fool some of these people into not lowering their productivity. But as they say “you can fool most people some of the time…”. Eventually the inescapable reality that a nation’s economic prosperity equals the total amount of goods and services it produces, will override any smoke and mirrors macroeconomic manipulation.
Incentives to produce are being lowered for both competent and less competent. Therefore the new base trendline of American economics will be slower growth.
Slower growth in a world that grows at 4% means that Americans, in relative terms, revert downward to the worldwide economic average within a couple of generations. What Mr. Mitchell calls “Mitchell’s law” i.e. ”Bad policy begets even worse policy” and I call the “vicious cycle”i.e. “voters respond to economic distress with calls for even more central planning and even more redistribution” will probably accelerate the process. Francification is irreversible.
There’s the maximum government revenue curve (Laffer curve) – which BTW has to be looked in the long term as well as the short term. I.e. there’s a short term and a long term Laffer curve.
Then there’s the maximum economic growth curve, whoose peak occurs much earlier than the peak of the Laffer curve (especially the peak of the short term Laffer curve).
I understand the Laffer Curve, or perhaps the Laugher Curve, as it describes the maximum amount gained by the government by taxation, but the original intent was never to provide the government with a “maximum” of anything, no less income from taxes. It may be efficient and/or mathematically valid but I object to the principle of “maximum government funding” becoming standard.
The government spends far more than it should, on policies and programs that it shouldn’t fund at all because they are not proper functions of government, and overspends on others that are. There are, and should be, limits on government instead of calculated maximums.
[…] I read about Jack Kennedy, and Mr. President, you are no Jack Kennedy Posted: September 8, 2010 by jcrue in DPGI archives 0 via International Liberty […]
[…] Between John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Posted by wfl under Taxes Leave a Comment Dan Mitchell: What’s especially fascinating is that JFK intuitively understood the Laffer Curve, particularly […]
One of the worst things politicians can do to our society is to instill the idea that recessions can be eliminated from the business cycle. They can’t. Instead of running around like a bunch of headless chickens we should be learning how to survive one and to better position ourselves for the upcoming recovery.
Your explanation assumes a set amount of wealth. A tax cut leads to an increase of the overall wealth, a bigger pie. the revenue to government is just a smaller slice of a bigger pie.
k
If we’re talking about the same ‘Laffer curve’ — which is a graph of government revenue (on the vertical axis) versus percentage of taxes withheld from the economy (on the horizontal axis) then yes, there is a point or a range-maximum or maxima on that graph between zero and one-hundred percent taxation. T
But there is an assumption that goes into many presentations of this graph, that the maximum level should somehow be achieved or viewed as a goal. But we should first ask the question “Do we really want to maximize govt revenue?”
What is government revenue? Taxes and duties! And where does it come from? The people!
It is taken from the hands of people who earned it by enriching society through voluntary exchanges. So when considering the idea of the Laffer Curve it is more enlightening to turn it UPSIDE DOWN! Then the peaks of the graph become points where the government is transferring the least amount of money away from the people, and the left side of the graph rises in some manner to identity with the total amount of wealth produced by the private economy.
The way the laffer curve is shown today, the apex represents maximal transfer of wealth from the citizen to the government.
To the right of the graph, where the taxes are higher than the maximum revenue point begins the real nightmare – that is when the central state has metastasized, and consumed the productive energy of society, and begins eating at the meat and the bone, literally self-digesting, consuming and dispensng of almost all valuable resources, including human lives.
The graves of hundreds of millions lie in mute testimony of the experiments performed in this area. No, i don’t agree with either of these esteemed gentlemen entirely.
If anybody thinks we’re at or near the peak of the laffer curve in terms of revenue, that would mean our government has been already running at the edge of destroying our civilization, our peaceful neighborhoods and our economy. That would be craz…. oh shit.