policy - The Black Vault

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Heller, New Dimensions, supra note 11.
Walter Heller, Perspect'ives on Economic Growth (New Ycrk:
House, 1968).
Random,
Walter Heller, The Economy: Old Myths and New Realities (New York:
I' 16.
W. W. Norton and Co., 1971).
Dillon, along with Federal Reserve Chairman William McChesney Martin and
Under Secretary of Treasury for Monetary Affairs Robert V. Rossa, held the
position in the Kennedy years of advocating more conservative economic
"policies. At the other end of the idministration's economic
spectrum was John Kenneth Galbraith, who advocated heavy ,blic-sector
spending to remedy inequities in American society and prov.de more
equitable access to the fruits of prosperity. Galbraith argued that the
private sector was incapable of making broad economic decisions taking
into accouiit the wider interests of the sod.ety. He advocated increased
federal intervintion in economic affairs, including imposition of wage and
price controls, and he argued strongly against trying to raiseý economic
productivity by tax cuts. Walter Heller, another liberal, gradually
became the guiding light of Kennedy's economic program. He argued that
the tax structure developed during World War II to restrict demand was
weighing down the economy and causing ths slow growth and cyclical -ecessions
that characterized the years after tha Korean War. Heller felt that the
government should undertake a large tax cut. See Rowen, The Free
Enterprisers... p. 162, Heller, New Dimensions.... pp. 29-36, and Galbraith,
Economics and the Public Purpose, p. 306.
17. This quotation from Friedman is found in Heller, New Dimensions, supra
note 11, p. 32. -or more on the general debate about the merits of
interventionist fiscal policies, see Milton Friedman and Walter Heller,
Monetary vs. Fiscal Policy (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1969).
18. Walter Heller, for example, has argued that the tax cut spurred a
$24.4 billion improvement in GNP by the second quarter of 1965, a
$7 billion nez increase in tax receiDts for the federal government.
and a $1.5 billion net increase in the receipts of state and local
governments. Heller, Perspectives, supra, note 12, pp. 44-46.
19. Stevens, supra note 7, p. 44.
20. Heller, New Dimensions, supra note 11.
21. The Johnson administration sought to present itself as the hei- to the
Kennedy legacy for distinctly political reasons that will be described
"in Chapter 5. The Kennedy heritage included a budding military co•,,iatment
in Southeast Asia, the beginnings of a war on poverty. and c:omnvi'merit
to carrying on the '1beral fiscal policy begun during the Kenrnedy years.
"4-34
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