Quote by John F. Kennedy: “The rising tide lifts all the boats.” “The rising tide lifts all the boats.” To see what your friends thought of this quote, please sign up!
Origins. He writes that he noticed that "the regional chamber of commerce, the New England Council, had a thoughtful slogan: 'A rising tide lifts all the boats.'". From then on, JFK would borrow the slogan often. Sorensen highlights this as an example of quotes mistakenly attributed to President Kennedy.
That the "rising tide raises all boats" phrase was found mostly in pump-priming or conservation speeches is probably just a coincidence, or a habit of Sorensen's, and not something Kennedy ordered up or even consciously meditated.
The “rising tide” metaphor has become a mainstay of Republican supply-siders, who endlessly attribute it to Kennedy in connection with his cutting of the highest income tax rate from over 90% to 70%, so I became curious to find where Kennedy used it, and whether in conjunction with the first sentence Laffer attributes to him.
Scholars of economic and political history have traced the political application of the aphorism to JFK, eventually Reagan. It has often been conflated by republicans with trickle down economics to justify their policies favoring tax cuts for the rich as the foundation of solving increasing income disparities.
One was a speech on August 17, 1962, in Pueblo, Colorado, on the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project: What I preach is the interdependence of the United States.
Laffer also invokes President John F. Kennedy as an advocate of enabling the rich to get richer without limits, as in the following passage: My dream has always been to make the poor richer, not to make the rich poorer. And, in fact, it is an added bonus if the rich get richer while the poor get richer, as well.
And, in fact, it is an added bonus if the rich get richer while the poor get richer, as well. My favorite quote on this subject is from President John F. Kennedy who said: “No American is ever made better off by pulling a fellow American down, and every American is made better off whenever any one of us is made better off.
Laffer uses the Kennedy quotation in both his article and book, but in neither version does he provide a source for the quotation, except for a footnote reference to one of his own earlier articles. I emailed him last December asking him if he could provide the original source.
'A rising tide lifts all boats' is a fairly recent proverbial saying - given that most proverbs are centuries old. It is most often used today to refer to the movements of prices on the stock market or the economy generally. The notion as regards the stock market is that a rising 'bear' market causes all stocks to rise in value, even weak ones.
'A rising tide lifts all boats' is often attributed to John F Kennedy. The speech which introduced this phrase to many people was given by Kennedy in 1963, when he promised the continued defense of Europe: