And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom.
John F. Kennedy
The Public Record
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years, and the first Catholic president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress before his presidency.
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For you and I are privileged to serve the great Republic in what could be the most decisive decade in its long history.
The choices we make, for good or ill, may well shape the state of the Union for generations yet to come.
The average factory work week is once again more than 40 hours; our industries are turning out more goods than ever before; and more than half of the manufacturing capacity that lay silent and wasted 100 weeks ago is humming with activity.
We have made a beginning--but we have only begun.
Now the time has come to make the most of our gains--to translate the renewal of our national strength into the achievement of our national purpose.
If we are to prevail in the long run, we must expand the long-run strength of our economy.
We must move along the path to a higher rate of growth and full employment.
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.
For it is increasingly clear--to those in Government, business, and labor who are responsible for our economy's success--that our obsolete tax system exerts too heavy a drag on private purchasing power, profits, and employment.
Designed to check inflation in earlier years, it now checks growth instead.
The product of our abundance must be used more effectively to relieve hunger and help economic growth in all corners of the globe.