Kennedy’s Keynesian Budgetary Politics and the 1962 Public Works Acceleration Act
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Harper’s Magazine, p. 25.
33 Chicago Daily Tribune, January 2, 1961, p. 1; Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1961, p. 1. New York Times, January 2, 1961, p. 1. 34 Kennedy – first budget proposal 35 New York Times, January 8, 1961, p. 1. 37 Council of Economic Advisers Oral History Interview –JFK#1, 08/1/1964; Joseph Pechman (Interviewer), August 1, 1964. Fort Ritchie, Maryland, p. 369-370. 38 Ibid., 372. 39 Washington Post, April 27, 1961, p. 1. 56 Democrats from the South announced their opposition to any plan that would bypass Congress and establish “backdoor financing” mechanisms; Rep. Clarence Cannon (D-MO), Appropriations Committee Chairman spearheaded the charge denouncing the funding gimmicks as “financial insanity.” 40 As the Wall Street Journal reported, – “Democratic strategists have concluded it will be impossible to push President Kennedy’s public works spending proposals through the House in their present form. Instead, they are preparing a new plan of their own that would both raise the amount of federal money available for immediate spending and reduce – or abandon altogether – the President’s proposed standby spending authority.” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 1962. 41 TESTIFY IN ORAL INTERVIEW 42 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Emergency Employment Acceleration Act: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 1961, 141. 44 Arthur Smithies, “The Commission on Money and Credit,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 75 (November, 1961): 544-568; also see, New York Times, June 25, 1961. 45 John F. Kennedy to Joseph S. Clark, August 7, 1961. Letter printed, in part, in Chicago Daily Tribune, August 23, 1961 and, New York Times, August 23, 1961, p. 29. 46 Both of these positions were, of course, tied to politics and partisan control of the federal government. As Irving Kristol summarized the debate, criticizing the Kennedy administration’s reliance on New Economics – “Never did an administration listen so little to so many…it has rejected the thesis of structural unemployment because its practical implications are so politically inconvenient. Inadequate demand can be cured by the Government spending more money. Structural unemployment can be abolished by no such simple scheme.” See: Irving Kirstol, January 6, 1964, “Jobs and the Man,” The New Leader, p. 6. 47 For a public reporting of the proposal, see: Los Angeles Times, January 8, 1962, p. 1; New York Times, January 8, 1962, p. 1, 48 Wall Street Journal, January 8, 1962, p. 1. 49 State of the Union. 50 Chicago Daily Tribune, January 12, 1962, p. 1. 51 Presidents 1962 Budget 52 U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, January 1962 Economic Report of the President: Hearings before the Joint Economic Committee, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 1962, 16-17 53 Ibid., 284. 54 Ibid., 714. 55 Ibid., 674. 56 Ibid., 812. Kennedy also met with leaders of the AFL-CIO several weeks after this testimony in an hour and a half long meeting with Kennedy at the White House. They told members of the press that they were satisfied with the amounts, and with presidential control, but pressed the line that had given before the committee that the spending programs should “be made to take effect not instead of waiting until there is another recession.” See: Wall Street Journal, March 13, 1962, p. 9. 57– “Congress has the feeling that it is accessible. If the need develops to take action to ward off a depression it could act with reasonable dispatch.” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 20, 1962, p. 1. 58 Full letter reprinted in New York Times, February 20, 1962, p. 19. 59 The immediate public works program would concentrate on projects that were already underway and supported by the less-than-year-old Area Redevelopment Administration inside the Commerce department, which offered support to localities through loans, grants, technical assistance, and federal research capabilities. Major areas including, Fall River, Lowell, and New Bedford, Mass.; Atlantic City; Johnstown, Washington, Pottsville, Scranton, and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; Providence, RI, and several smaller municipalities in West Virginia. 60 New York Times, March 24, 1962, p. 1. 61 H.R. 10113, 87th Cong. 2d sess.; H.R. 10318, 87th Cong. 2d sess. 62 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Public Works, Standby Capital Improvement Act of 1962: Hearings before the Committee on Public Works, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 1962, 12. 63 Ibid., 37 64 Ibid., 44. 65 Ibid., 51. 66 Ibid., 220-223. 67 Ibid., 326. 68 Los Angeles Times, April 3, 1962, p. 16. 69 New York Times, April 3, 1962, p. 23. 70 Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1962, p. 5. 71 Liberal Democrats, in addition to protecting their Congressional power, were also concerned over the specific financing mechanism that would cipher funds from several key agencies. Frank Lausche (D-OH) – “If a business man diverted money from trust funds under his supervision to other purposes, he would be guilty of a crime.” in Chicago Daily Tribune, May 16, 1962, p. 14. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 16, 1962, p. 14. 72 The Wall Street Journal editorial board was one of the most voracious critics of the public works policy, with dozens of editorials decrying the administration’s emphasis on public works. For example, “Indeed, the dispiriting thing about the whole mixed-up approach is its backwardness. Instead of seriously analyzing the complex problems of unemployment and economic growth, the advocates of such legislation merely propose the first thing that occurs to the political mind. That confuses the real issues and delays the day when they can be sensibly tackled.” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 1962, p. 12. 73 Erwin C. Hargrove and Samuel A. Morley. The President and the Council of Economic Advisers: Interviews with CEA Chairmen (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984). 74 Printed in Wall Street Journal, May 9, 1962, p. 20. President added on USSR: This is the great challenge. When Mr. Khrushchev talks about co-existence it is because he believes that the economy of the Soviet Union has enough vitality that over a period of time he can pass this country and when he does, as he said, the hinge of history will move…Well, we’re not convinced that they will be in the 60s, because we are going to make a very definite effort, but I can imagine nothing more disastrous than to have a country which had a gross nation product a third of ours, or 40% of ours, suddenly pass this great country. 75 Wall Street Journal, May 17, 1962, p. 16. 76 Wall Street Journal, May 16, 1962, p. 32. 77 Chicago Daily Tribune, May 23, 1962, p. C11; Wall Street Journal, May 23, 1962, p. 5. 78 39 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted in favor of the final proposal, with standby authority against 8 Democrats and 24 Republicans. 79 On the floor, leaders convinced Howard Cannon of NV and John McClellan of AK. “pair” withhold vote to negate the effect of the absence of some colleague who would vote aye if present. Positons are recorded but votes don’t count. For a journalistic account of the on-the-floor drama, see: New York Times, May 29, 1962. 80 Barry Goldwater, “Public Works Plan would Open U.S. Purse Wider to the President,” June 7, 1962, Los Angeles Times, p. A5. 81 Wall Street Journal, June 25, 1962, p. 3. 82 Barry Goldwater, “Kennedy’s Economic Medicine May Hurt Rather Than Help the Patient,” August 9, 1962, Los Angeles Times, p. A5. 83 Again, the Wall Street Journal editorial board most adequately captures the fiscal conservative position: “All this is fragile theorizing, not least because it omits the human factor. No one can know, for example, what consumers may do with extra ‘purchasing power’ generated by increased Government spending or tax cuts or both…In short, there is not guarantee that the Government can keep the economy from falling, or turn it up when it does, by tinkering with its “stabilizers”…the more the government fiddles, in fact, the worse trouble it may create.” In: Wall Street Journal, July 12, 1962, p. 14. 84 Chicago Daily Tribune, June 8, 1962, p. 1; Washington Post, June 8, 1962; Wall Street Journal, June 8, 1962, p. 3. Chicago Daily Tribune, June 23, 1962, p. 1-3. 85 New York Times, July 22, 1962, p. 38. 86 Wall Street Journal, August 10, 1962, p. 2. 87 Papers of John F. Kennedy. Presidential Papers. President's Office Files. Speech Files. Radio and television address to the nation on the economy, August 13, 1962 88 Chicago Daily Tribune, August 15, 1962, p. 7; New York Times, August 15, 1962, p. 1. 89 Wall Street Journal, August 28, 1962, p. 4. 90 Such remarks were given by Rep. Howard Robison (R-NY), see: Congressional Record 1962 91 19 Republicans voted for the bill; nine from Pennsylvania, two from New York and Michigan, one each from Indiana, Maine, Nevada, Wisconsin, Maryland, and West Virginia. Immediately following the vote 44 Southern Democrats voted to recommit the bill to committee in a last-ditch hope to table the plan. 92 “Section 3” was mistakenly labeled “Section 9” therefore ambiguously detailing the responsibilities of the Housing and Home Finance Agency. 93 New York Times, September 1, 1962; New York Times, September 11, 1962. 94 Washington Post, September 11, 1962, p. A1. 95 New York Times, September 13, 1962, p. 36. 96 New York Times, September 16, 1962, p. 204. 97 Kennedy remarks upon signing the PWAA 98 President John F. Kennedy’s Office Files, 1961–1963 Part 3: Departments and Agencies File; Reel 5, “Bureau of Budget,” 0073-0136. Research Collections in American Politics. Microforms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections. William Leuchtenburg (ed.). 99 Washington Post, December 21, 1962, p. A6. 100 Nancy H. Teeters, “The 1972 Budget: Where it Stands and Where it Might Go.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 233 (1971) 101 Ott and Ott, Federal Budget Policy, 101 103 Harris, “Economics and the Kennedy Years,” 67. 104 To be sure, Heller does credit some of President Johnson’s change-of-heart regarding the new economics from the positive fiscal impact of the 1962 “stimulus,” which included the PWAA authorizations. AS Heller writes, “He [Johnson] also shared with Kennedy a growing impatience with the performance of the economy and a willingness to explore the potential of new economic ideas. There is this difference: actual performance, the hard evidence of results flowing from policy action, looms larger in President Johnson’s thinking. And by the time he became President, some of the results were flowing from the 1962 fiscal actions and related stimulants.” In Walter Heller. 1967. New Dimensions pf Political Economy. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, p. 36. 105 Interestingly enough, Walter Heller recognized this omission in the histories of the Kennedy administration as early as 1984: “At the same time, we were failing to get economic stimulus by the expenditure route. The White House was butting its head against a brick wall as far as spending programs were concerned. This is something I underscore because some amateur historians say we just folded under and decided to give in to the conservative forces in the country and forgo the expenditure route. Nothing could be further from the truth. The expenditure route had been tried again and again. Kennedy said to me flatly, ‘Look, I’m not against spending money. If you fellows could figure out a way for me to get the programs out of Congress, let’s go to it.’ Recorded during an oral interview in, Erwin C. Hargrove and Samuel A. Morley. The President and the Council of Economic Advisers: Interviews with CEA Chairmen (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984). 106 Julian Zelizer, Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945-1975 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 107 Sidney Milkis. 1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the Party System since the New Deal. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 108 James Savage, Balanced Budget and American Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988): 176. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 172.32 Kb. Share with your friends:
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