People who don't wear the blinders, or rose-colored glasses of Camelot know that Jack Kennedy wasn't all that liberal. That said, Ira Stoll's "JFK, Conservative" may overstate the case a bit.
But, what if there's threads, albeit tenuous, tying Jack Kennedy to the later rise of neoliberalism? (A rise that doesn't start with Bill Clinton; Jimmy Carter is arguably the first neoliberal president.)
I think that any further civil rights initiatives Kennedy might have pushed for, had he not been shot, would have been more market-oriented than LBJ's. Certainly, from what we know of his version of Medicare, that's true there.
As for the realities for Camelot, I suggest JFK adorers start with Robert Dallek's new book, "Camelot's Court."
Or, maybe due to the mix of being a Cold Warrior and a nation-builder in his foreign policy, we should instead wonder if Jack was the first neoconservative, or at least the first non-Jewish one.
3 comments:
"I think that any further civil rights initiatives Kennedy might have pushed for, had he not been shot, would have been more market-oriented than LBJ's. Certainly, from what we know of his version of Medicare, that's true there."
I was intrigued by your mention that LBJ and JFK had different versions of Medicare and that the latter's was more market-oriented. I was wondering where I could find out more about this? Or where did you find out about this? Thanks.
Exit, boy, this was a few years ago. It may have been in Stoll's new book. Had it been in a place like Slate or Salon, I am sure I would have posted a link.
Gadfly--thanks. Stoll describes Kennedy's Medicare proposal thus (p. 101): "While he proposed a health insurance program for seniors along the lines of what became Medicare, he made it a lower priority than tariff reduction. In his February 9, 1961, message to Congress on health, the president described the plan for the elderly as "a very modest proposal cut to meet absolutely essential needs, and with sufficient 'deductible' requirements to discourage any malingering or unnecessary overcrowding of our hospitals." He went on, "This program is not a program of socialized medicine. It is a program of prepayment of health costs with absolute freedom of choice guaranteed. Every person will choose his own doctor and hospital...The program is a sound one and entirely in accordance with the traditional American system of placing responsibility on the employee and employer, rather than on the general taxpayers, to help finance retirement and health costs."
Stoll pretty much lets this speak for itself; I don't really know myself how it compares with Johnson's version. The only comment Stoll makes really on this is "The reference to "malingering" signaled Kennedy's awareness that welfare programs tend to create perverse incentives" (and then he goes on to talk about Kennedy's desire fore welfare reform.) He does imply (p. 191) that he thinks it's incorrect to credit Kennedy with Medicare, saying that Johnson told Walter Heller, shortly after the assassination, that, unlike Kennedy, he was "no budget slasher."
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