Obama Compared to JFK...and Found Wanting

Rush Limbaugh, on his show yesterday, played a montage of the fawning MSM comparing Obama in his speech to the US Chamber of Commerce, to JFK.

E.J. DIONNE: It was a John F. Kennedy sort of "ask, uh, what you can do for your country" speech!

CONNELL McSHANE: A JFK moment...

LARRY KUDLOW: ...stealing a page from JFK.

JOHN HARWOOD: A JFK-style challenge to businesses...

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: ...a Kennedy-like call to action!

MARK CRUMPTON: ...hearken back to President Kennedy!

CHRISTINE ROMANS: ...sounded like JFK!

Then, he played clips from President Kennedy, whose policies are diametrically opposed to whatever Obama has done the last two years or proposes doing for the next two (or, God forbid, six!)

"Every dollar released from taxation, that is spent or invested, will help create a new job and a new salary, and these new jobs and new salaries can create other jobs and other salaries, and more customers and more growth for an expanding American economy."

JFK called for across the board tax cuts to create new jobs and more growth. Obama doesn't want to release dollars from taxation, he wants as many of them as he can get his hands on.

"If government is to retain the confidence of the people, it must not spend more than can be justified (give or take a trillion) on grounds of national need or spent with maximum efficiency."

If JFK were delivering this speech today, he would have to pause there for a laugh.

The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business, is to reduce the burden on private income, and the deterrence to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II, to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peacetime.

Does that sound anything like Obama to you? Me neither!

When consumers purchase more goods, plants use more of their capacity, men are hired instead of laid off, investment increases and profits are higher. Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment.

That sounds suspiciously like a jobs program to me! Or we could raise taxes on business to make them "pay their fair share", even if in reality those taxes are added to the cost of the products you buy, as a hidden tax on the consumer, which is a regressive tax on the poor.

I was twelve years old when Kennedy ran for president. That didn't stop me from supporting him. I still have the Kennedy for President button I wore in grade school. Hearing him again reminds me of how far the Democrats have fallen in the last two score and ten years.

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.