An online ad Linda McMahon’s U.S. Senate campaign posted using a President John F. Kennedy speech has started a battle of letters between the candidate and Ted Kennedy Jr.
The ad, which appears to have been posted about a week ago, includes news coverage of a speech President Kennedy made in August 1963 about the difficult economic times the country was going through.
“Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job,” President Kennedy said.
On Wednesday, Ted Kennedy Jr., son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, sent McMahon a letter asking her to “offer a retraction statement that clarifies the distinction between my uncle’s polices and your own.”
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He said the reasons for his uncle’s tax cuts were greatly different from McMahon’s and that they came at a time when there was a much smaller deficit and that his cuts were to help the middle class. McMahon’s policies, he said, “are about enhancing the wealth of the richest 2 percent of Americans.”
You can read the full letter here. http://media.nbcbayarea.com/documents/Kennedy+Letter.pdf
On Thursday, McMahon send a letter in response. http://www.linda2010.com/images/pdf/20100922_LEM_Letter_To_Kennedy.pdf
“While I appreciate your interest in my campaign, I must disagree with your characterization of the tax situation,” she writes.
She said that President Kennedy’s tax cuts lowered the tax rate from 91 percent for that making $300,000 to 77 percent for those making $200,000 or more, which would equate to $1.4 million today.
“So in short, your uncle supported tax cuts for those making nearly six times more than what today’s Democratic Party, as well as your letter, labels as “the wealthy,” she wrote.
She went on to say that “the debate in Washington is not about tax cuts, but surrounds the extension of tax law and preventing tax increases. I do not support raising taxes,” McMahon wrote.
Tax cuts, she said, are designed to create jobs and economic growth, she said.
“While I value the opinion of all Connecticut voters, no school of economic thought advocates raising taxes in the environment in which we currently find ourselves. Therefore, I respectfully disagree that your uncle would support raising taxes in this economy,” McMahon said.
