Statement by the President Following a Meeting With the Business Committee for Tax Reduction in 1963.
I AM pleased to learn firsthand of the organization of this distinguished group of business and financial leaders. They will perform a useful public service in fostering a wider understanding of the national need for a prompt and substantial reduction in individual and corporate tax rates. They have shown a high sense of statesmanship by their voluntary expression of interest and concern for the economic well-being of our Nation.
I am well aware that they are not in accord with all the proposals for structural revisions in our tax law I have made to the Congress, but their action indicates a substantial area of commonly held views which is far more significant than the area of difference. This is evident in the Statement of Principles adopted by this group at their meeting today.
Their statement reflects underlying beliefs-which I fully share--that the present Federal tax structure inhibits incentives, discourages economic growth, and is partly responsible for the present high level of unemployment, and that careful expenditure control must accompany tax reductions.
Note: The President's statement was issued following a meeting with the Committee in the Fish Room at the White House. During the meeting the Committee's Statement of Principles, adopted at its meeting earlier in the day, was presented to the President. The statement was made public in a Committee release dated April 25. Subsequently Henry Ford II, chairman of the Ford Motor Company, and Stuart T. Saunders, president of the Norfolk & Western Railway, were named cochairman of the Committee.
John F. Kennedy, Statement by the President Following a Meeting With the Business Committee for Tax Reduction in 1963. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235847
