In the words of Robert D. Marcus: "Kennedy entered office with ambitions to eradicate poverty and to raise America's eyes to the stars through the space program.
... Can we carry through in an age where we will witness not only new breakthroughs in weapons of destruction, but also a race for mastery of the sky and the rain, the ocean and the tides, the far side of space, and the inside of men's minds?
[2]Among the legislation passed by Congress during the Kennedy Administration, unemployment benefits were expanded, aid was provided to cities to improve housing and transportation, funds were allocated to continue the construction of a national highway system started under Eisenhower, a water pollution control act was passed to protect the country's rivers and streams, and an agricultural act to raise farmers' incomes was made law.
[3] A significant amount of anti-poverty legislation was passed by Congress, including increases in social security benefits and in the minimum wage, several housing bills, and aid to economically distressed areas.
Major expansions and improvements were made in Social Security (including retirement at 62 for men), hospital construction, library services, family farm assistance and reclamation.
[13] It has also been acknowledged that during his presidency, Kennedy had placed Johnson, a former Senate Majority Leader, in charge of getting his New Frontier proposals passed through Congress.
Several themes that were popular in the post-World War II American histories were apparent during the administration and also reflected in the television series Profiles in Courage.
"[15] Within Schlesinger's analytical framework of the domestic politics of the United States during this period he identifies three main ideological currents: 1) what he calls the "vital center" are the "New Deal liberals" who had been gaining ground politically since 1933, 2) right-wing racial extremists mostly confined to the Southern regions of the United States, and 3) Communists who Schlesinger identifies as posing the "primary opposition to American values from within and without".
I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last 5 years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peacetime; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking.
The Government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment.
[18]On the same evening, President Kennedy said the private sector and not the public sector was the key to economic growth: "In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the Federal Government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures."
[51] The commission, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt until her death in 1962, was composed of 26 members including legislators, labor union activists and philanthropists who were active in women's rights issues.
Recommendations included affordable child care for all income levels, hiring practices that promoted equal opportunity for women, and paid maternity leave.
[5] The Kennedy Administration's anticrime measures included the Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act, which was signed into law on September 22, 1961.
The Kennedy administration with its new Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, gave a strong priority to countering communist political subversion and guerrilla tactics in the "wars of national liberation" to decolonize the Third World, long held in Western vassalage.
The U.S. military increased in size and faced possible confrontation with the Soviets with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
The United States provided a clandestine operation to supply military aid and support to Cuban exiles in the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion.