What John F. Kennedy teaches us today

Related Link John F. Kennedy: An Idealist Without Illusions By Jeff Shesol

John F. Kennedy’s 100th birthday comes at a moment when an inexperienced and incompetent commander-in-chief threatens some of the 35th President’s chief priorities.

President Trump’s budget proposals, tax reforms and health insurance reform plans promise to explode federal deficits and punish the least advantaged members of society.

These policies would have appalled JFK.

Kennedy’s requests to Congress included reducing top marginal income-tax rates from 91% to 71%; providing medical insurance for the elderly; investing in federal aid to education, and passing legislation prohibiting racial segregation in all places of public accommodation.

But since it was Lyndon Johnson who ultimately enacted Kennedy’s four major domestic reform proposals after Kennedy’s assassination, it was JFK’s handling of foreign crises and advances toward international accommodation that will stand as his most important presidential actions.

And here, the contrast between the strong but reflective and deliberate Kennedy and the unstable, historically ungrounded Trump couldn’t be more stark. ...