Russ Alllah Gehry
VIP Member
- Dec 11, 2016
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I believe we must allow President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), to speak for himself:
people say, "Why doesn't the Government mind its own business?" What is the Government's business, is the question.
This bill serves the public interest. It involves the Government because it involves the public welfare. The Constitution of the United States did not make the President or the Congress powerless. It gave them definite responsibilities to advance the general welfare--and that is what we're attempting to do.
And then I read that this bill will sap the individual self-reliance of Americans. I can't imagine anything worse, or anything better, to sap someone's self-reliance, than to be sick, alone, broke--or to have saved for a lifetime and put it out in a week, two weeks, a month, two months.
This argument that the Government should stay out, that it saps our pioneer stock--I used to hear that argument when we were talking about raising the minimum wage to a dollar and a quarter. I remember one day being asked to step out into the hall, and up the corridor came four distinguished-looking men, with straw hats on and canes. They told me that they had just flown in from a State in their private plane, and they wanted me to know that if we passed a bill providing for time and a half for service station attendants, who were then working about 55 to 60 hours of straight time, it would sap their self-reliance.
John F. Kennedy
202 - Address at a New York Rally in Support of the President's Program of Medical Care for the Aged.
May 20, 1962
John F. Kennedy: Address at a New York Rally in Support of the President's Program of Medical Care for the Aged.
Today...Smashing The Lie That JFK Was or Would Be a Conservative Today
people say, "Why doesn't the Government mind its own business?" What is the Government's business, is the question.
This bill serves the public interest. It involves the Government because it involves the public welfare. The Constitution of the United States did not make the President or the Congress powerless. It gave them definite responsibilities to advance the general welfare--and that is what we're attempting to do.
And then I read that this bill will sap the individual self-reliance of Americans. I can't imagine anything worse, or anything better, to sap someone's self-reliance, than to be sick, alone, broke--or to have saved for a lifetime and put it out in a week, two weeks, a month, two months.
This argument that the Government should stay out, that it saps our pioneer stock--I used to hear that argument when we were talking about raising the minimum wage to a dollar and a quarter. I remember one day being asked to step out into the hall, and up the corridor came four distinguished-looking men, with straw hats on and canes. They told me that they had just flown in from a State in their private plane, and they wanted me to know that if we passed a bill providing for time and a half for service station attendants, who were then working about 55 to 60 hours of straight time, it would sap their self-reliance.
John F. Kennedy
202 - Address at a New York Rally in Support of the President's Program of Medical Care for the Aged.
May 20, 1962
John F. Kennedy: Address at a New York Rally in Support of the President's Program of Medical Care for the Aged.
Today...Smashing The Lie That JFK Was or Would Be a Conservative Today
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