We cannot effectively attack the problem of teenage crime and delinquency as long as so many of our young people are out of work. We cannot effectively solve the problem of racial injustice as long as unemployment is high. We cannot tackle the problem of automation when we are losing 1 million jobs every year to machines. Second, a tax cut means new protection against another tragic recession. I do not say that a recession is inevitable without a tax Cut, or impossible with one, but, excluding war years, we have had a recession on the average every 42 months since World War II, or every 44 months since World War I, and by next January it will be 44 months since the last recession began.
Recessions mean high unemployment and high budget deficits.
Of all kinds of waste, they are the worst. We need a tax cut to keep this present drive from running out of gas. And third a tax cut means new markets for American business. American citizens will spend, as history shows us, an overwhelming percentage of the extra, after-tax dollars left in their pockets, and this spending will broaden markets for businessmen, put idle machines to work, and require new machines and new factories to be built. The multiplied effect of these new private consumption and investment expenditures released by the tax cut will create a new market right here at home nearly equal to the gross national product of Canada and Australia combined.