US Presidency
1963

It discourages extra effort and risk. It distorts the use of resources. It invites recurrent recessions, depresses our Federal revenues, and causes chronic budget deficits. Now, when the inflationary pressures of the war and the post-war years no longer threaten, and the dollar commands new respect now, when no military crisis strains our resources -now is the time to act. We can not afford to be timid or slow. For this is the most urgent task confronting the Congress in 1963. In an early message, I shall propose a permanent reduction in tax rates which will lower liabilities by $ 13.5 billion. Of this, $ 11 billion results from reducing individual tax rates, which now range between 20 and 91 percent, to a more sensible range of 14 to 65 percent, with a split in the present first bracket. Two and one-half billion dollars results from reducing corporate tax rates, from 52 percent which gives the Government today a majority interest in profits to the permanent pre Korean level of 47 percent.