RE: The guy was a wrecking ball.
Well, he did something right -— HE CUT TAXES.
Kennedy inherited a major recession (a contraction at an annualized rate of five percent in the fourth quarter of 1960) but kept domestic spending basically flat while ramping up military and overseas spending.
Though he did preside over a 25 percent increase (over two years) in the federal minimum wage and launch several domestic programs beloved by liberals including food stamps and what became Medicare when it was passed in 1965, he harbored deep suspicions of the creeping influence of the state.
Albert Jay Nock’s anti-New Deal book “Our Enemy, the State” was a volume JFK kept at his Boston home in the 1950s and he sometimes echoed the book in public statements. “I do not believe in a super state,” he said in a 1960 speech in which he declared himself a liberal, with heavy qualifiers that made him sound more like one of today’s conservatives.
“I see no magic to tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned,” he continued, smartly summarizing the voodoo economics of Keynesianism. “I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well.”
Interesting. I like Nock's writing -- must check that one out. His writing on education is brilliant.