Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s exit from the Democratic Party (or was he booted out?) is only the latest sign that there are no more JFK Democrats left.
Democratic President John F. Kennedy was a staunch anti-communist who fought against union and government corruption. He was laser-focused on faster growth ("we can do bettah") and saw sweeping tax rate reductions as a step toward achieving 4 to 5% growth.
In 1962 he famously declared: "It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now."
Sadly, today you could count on one hand the number of Democrats in Washington who believe that. JFK called for a reduction in income tax and capital gains taxes. The Left wants to raise every one of these rates – including doubling capital gains taxes.
When Unleash Prosperity hosted a dinner earlier this year with RFK, Jr., we asked him about tax policy. He replied: "I learned from my uncle that cutting taxes increases prosperity." Liberals have never learned that lesson.
They should educate themselves by reading Larry Kudlow and Brian Domitrovic's wonderful book "JFK and the Reagan Revolution."
We had a popular piece in the New York Post this weekend exposing the hypocrisy of Kamala Democrats in trying to hijack the "freedom" theme.
Freedom is about liberty, the absence of government oppression, and about giving Americans the right to choose how to live their lives. We like Kamala's own definition when she told union workers in Michigan last week: "Americans don't want their government telling them what to do." Amen to that.
But the entire Kamala-Walz playbook is about taking away our right to make our own decisions:
Harris is a staunch opponent of school choice and allowing families to select the school best for their children. Doesn't freedom mean that everyone, of all incomes and races, has access to great schools?
Harris favors outlawing gas-powered cars. Isn't the right to drive the car of your choice a basic freedom?
Harris backs climate change bans or restrictions on a handful of common household conveniences from lightbulbs to air conditioners to gas stoves. Doesn't freedom mean keeping the government out of the bedroom and the kitchen?
Harris supports the "PRO Act," which would force workers to join unions against their will or lose their jobs. What next? Forcing voters to be Democrats before they can vote?
Harris has advocated Medicare for All, which means you lose the right to choose and keep your own health-care plan.
Harris and Tim Walz were among the strongest advocates of militant lockdowns of schools, businesses, and churches during the COVID pandemic. Isn't freedom the right to keep your business open, to attend religious services, to earn a paycheck, and for kids to go to school?
Harris is in favor of much higher tax rates on businesses and estates – and even a tax on unrealized capital gains on farms, ranches, and family-owned business. Doesn't freedom mean reasonable taxation and the right to pass your life savings to your children and grandchildren? (Remember: confiscatory estate taxes were a key plank of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.)
We could go on. But Kamala isn't lying when she says that freedom is on the ballot in November.
As just mentioned, Kamala Harris of California and Tim Walz of Minnesota were two of the most strident supporters of shutting down the economy – back in 2020 – including hospitals. They've never apologized or admitted they were wrong.
The chart below provided to us by Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institution shows that these lockdowns contributed to as many as tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. It shows that hospital utilization fell dramatically during the months of lockdowns. It validates the Unleash Prosperityseminal Covid Lessons Learned study – and our Lesson #8: "The Real Hospital Story Was Underutilization."
Hospitals were underutilized due to lockdowns and panic – which meant delayed care, delayed treatments, and delayed screening for cancer and other killer diseases.
What scares us is that they would do it all over again, if the opportunity arose.
4) We Can Cut $1 Trillion a Year from the Budget with Our Eyes Closed
It is remarkable that Biden and Harris have proposed $4.6 trillion in taxes over the next decade and at least $2 trillion in new spending – but have NO spending cuts that we can find. Zero.
Our brother-in-arms Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has an eminently sound plan to save trillions of dollars by simply returning to the PRE-Covid spending levels.
It's a layup. A picture is worth a thousand words, so we reproduce here a great graphic from financial analyst Richard Salsman.
He shows that just returning to the pre-pandemic baseline saves about $1.2 trillion a year over the next decade. That's $10 TRILLION off the debt.
Almost from the moment of our first landmark Pension Politics report, BlackRock began retreating from the leading proponent of putting left-wing politics over investment returns to the middle of the pack to, perhaps, more skeptical of ESG than the average fund manager.
This headline caught our attention:
In the 12 months to the end of June, BlackRock supported just 20 of the 493 environmental and social proposals put forward by shareholders at annual meetings, or about 4 per cent of the total, according to its annual investment stewardship report.
That compares with a high of 47 per cent in 2021. By last year the figure had fallen to 7 per cent.
The decline in support comes as companies' efforts to address climate change and inequality -- issues that were once bundled together with governance under the ESG umbrella -- have become politically fraught.
