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Fact check: Did JFK campaign on tax cuts?
January 27, 2016
By David Borman
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for president on March 23, 2015. Since that time, as early as a campaign event in Iowa in April 2015, Cruz has invoked another senator who sought the presidency: John F. Kennedy. At the April event, Cruz praised Kennedy's tax cuts during the 1960s.[1] In January 2016, at two separate events, Cruz included tax cuts as among the items that Kennedy campaigned on in his only presidential run. He told crowds in both Iowa and New Hampshire, “JFK campaigned on tax cuts, limiting government and standing up and defeating Soviet communists.”[2] Did JFK campaign on tax cuts? And how accurate are Cruz’s depictions of Kennedy and his tax policies?
Kennedy’s tax cuts
That Kennedy lowered the tax rate is clear. Recent books chronicling Kennedy’s time in office, including Ira Stoll’s 2013 book JFK, Conservative, note his tax cuts as part of an economic plan, as does Robert Dallek’s bestselling biography An Unfinished Life. Kennedy proposed tax cuts in 1963 and President Lyndon Johnson (D) gained Congressional approval for these proposals in 1964. Under Kennedy’s proposals, taxes would be cut across the board: the personal tax was reduced from a range of 20 to 91 percent to a 14 to 70 percent range and the corporate tax rate went from 52 to 47 percent. These proposals went into effect in 1964, a few months after he was assassinated.[3][4]
Economic historian Brian Domitrovic, writing for Forbes, notes the effects of Kennedy’s tax cuts, writing, “The eight-year expansion from 1961 to 1969 saw growth of 48%, a third more in an eight-year period than in the sixteen years ending in 1960. 1944-69, the ‘postwar prosperity’ quarter century, saw growth at the nice peak-to-peak rate of 3% per year, but only because the 1960s lifted everything up.”[5]
Kennedy’s tax policy
Were tax cuts always part of JFK's political platform? Not exactly. Unlike Cruz's description, Kennedy does not seem to have campaigned on this issue. Instead, he began looking to tax cuts well after coming to the White House. In 1960, Kennedy famously campaigned on the slogan that he would “get America moving again.” When he accepted the Democratic nomination for president, Kennedy outlined a vision of the future as a “New Frontier,” a vision he claimed “is not a set of promises-- it is a set of challenges.” The “New Frontier” did not include a specific vision for taxes:[6]
| “ | There may be those who wish to hear more -- more promises to this group or that, more harsh rhetoric about the men in the Kremlin as a substitute for policy, more assurances of a golden future, where taxes are always low and the subsidies are always high. But my promises are in the platform that you have adopted. Our ends will not be won by rhetoric, and we can have faith in the future only if we have faith in ourselves.[7] | ” |
The Democratic platform to which Kennedy refers is adamant about cutting the national debt but vague on taxes, stating, “The new Democratic Administration will plan for an orderly shift of our expenditures.”[8] The platform does not rule out increasing or decreasing taxes across the board.
So when did Kennedy look to tax cuts? Here is a basic timeline. In 1962, after pledging other reforms, Kennedy faced a domestic economy still locked in recession, with high unemployment and a stock market that had yet to recover from severe losses. According to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Kennedy “finally decided that only a bold domestic program, including tax cuts, would restore his political momentum.”[9] In a December 1962 speech, Kennedy told the Economic Club of New York, “this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963.”[10] In 1963, in a special message to Congress on his tax cuts, Kennedy explained that they were intended to promote growth: “our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort--thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate.”[3] The timing of these speeches indicates that the cuts were initially pledged in 1962, proposed to Congress in 1963 and put into effect in 1964. In short, tax cuts—while part of Kennedy’s presidential legacy—were the result of a longer economic policy evolution.
Conclusion
Cruz’s campaign rhetoric suggests that JFK proposed “tax cuts” during his campaign for president in 1960. Our research suggests that this portrait of Kennedy conflates the historical timeline. Kennedy’s tax policies evolved over time: lower tax rates were not a campaign promise but a reaction to the failure of the economy to recover from a recession; they were part of a protracted attempt to promote economic growth across the board. Therefore, Cruz's claim that Kennedy was a strong advocate for lower tax rates is true; but his claim that Kennedy campaigned on this issue is false.
Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2025, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.
Sources and Notes
- ↑ The New York Times, "Cruz Champions a Democrat: President Kennedy," April 2, 2015
- ↑ Politico, "Cruz claims JFK's mantle," January 17, 2016
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The American Presidency Project, "Special Message to the Congress on Tax Reduction and Reform," accessed January 26, 2016
- ↑ NPR, "JFK's Lasting Economic Legacy: Lower Tax Rates," November 20, 2013
- ↑ Forbes, "Trashing JFK's Tax Cuts, One of the Greatest Policy Successes of All Time," March 12, 2013
- ↑ American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank, "Democratic National Convention Nomination Acceptance Address," accessed January 26, 2016
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The American Presidency Project, "Democratic Party Platform of 1960," accessed January 26, 2016
- ↑ John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, "JFK on the Economy and Taxes," accessed January 26, 2016
- ↑ American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank, "Address to the Economic Club of New York," accessed January 26, 2016
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