5. Ira Stoll argues, in this column & listicle & his book, that JFK was a conservative. That's a stretch & some of his examples are as trolly as Prof. Kruse's, but he notes some important ways in which JFK was really not liberal. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/irastoll/21-ways-jfk-was-actually-a-conservative-fjkq …http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/14/jfk-was-a-political-conservative/ …
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16. Prof. Kruse excuses this by noting that JFK left rates a lot higher than they are today. True! But he also pushed to increase defense spending, even though he inherited a *vastly* bigger defense budget than we have today.
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17. JFK pushed defense spending to almost 10% of GDP and 50% of federal spending; today it is roughly 3.5% of GDP & 16% of federal spending. He also ran on fears of a "missile gap" - that Eisenhower, of all people, was soft on nukes - & expanded our nuclear arsenal.
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18. Like many aspects of JFK's policies, his expansion of defense spending was clawed back some, & he built more missiles but also signed a nuclear test ban treaty. But then again, Reagan signed arms control deals, too. History is complicated!
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19. JFK urged "strengthening NATO, promoted free trade and denounced the use of protective tariffs." Yes, these are longstanding conservative positions, & are shared by many Rs in Congress today. This just shows that JFK was more conservative than Trump. https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1104826910306197504 …
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20. Tariffs are taxes; JFK cutting them was consistent with his overall orientation towards tax cuts. Also "strengthening NATO" is an understated way of saying JFK was a vocal & vigorous Cold Warrior who almost came to blows with the Soviets in Berlin.https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/standoff-checkpoint-charlie-1961/ …
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21. Prof. Kruse does the same thing here: "oh yeah, he stood up to the Russians." Tough-on-USSR was, of course, the conservative position throughout the Cold War, not the liberal one. It has remained the position of many non-Trump conservatives since. https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1104826923589554176 …
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22. Again, "JFK was really, really against Communism" is not the killer gotcha that you think for why he was more a liberal than a conservative. He wasn't a Bernie Sanders "honeymoon in Moscow" guy. He almost had nuclear war over Fidel Castro. He spoke of Communism as evil:pic.twitter.com/RFRqtv4SQy
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No, you’re wrong on this chief. Yes, there was both, but he minimally lowered the supply side, and heavily lowered it for demand side.
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You’re using an opinion piece from the 80s that was used to justify Reagan’s cuts—it’s entirely bullshit that the two are in anyway similar. This has been a GOP myth for generations. Reagan’s cuts even failed so badly he raised taxes for the middle class *11* times
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Dan -- the GOP was the "balanced budget" party then. Art Laffer had not become the darling of the right.
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