This combined program, by increasing the amount of our national income, will in time result in still higher Federal revenues.
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 this is the most urgent task confronting the Congress in 1963.
Now, when the inflationary pressures of the war and the post-war years no longer threaten, and the dollar commands new respect--now, when no military crisis strains our resources--now is the time to act.
It invites recurrent recessions, depresses our Federal revenues, and causes chronic budget deficits.
Designed to check inflation in earlier years, it now checks growth instead.
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.
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.
We must move along the path to a higher rate of growth and full employment.
If we are to prevail in the long run, we must expand the long-run strength of our economy.
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.
We have made a beginning--but we have only begun.
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.