greenlawn write off some solyndra. it doesn't matter what program neil: where were you 50 years ago this very hour? at 8:00 p.m. eastern time in the body of john f. kennedy was in washington for an autopsy that would drag on for hours. but still ultimately lead more questions than answers. think about where we were as a nation at this very moment coming half century ago. it might even lead toar. concerns that no one was safe and the reality that all innocence was off. fifty years ago this minute, a grieving jacqueline kennedy was being peppered with plans for a state funeral.

this night she would mention camelot being lost and a martyr was on. it was sadly all coming together at this hour on this day and that includes evy major global leader converging on our nation's capital with a horse-drawn carriage that had plastered abraham lincoln with through the same strets. she waited to take her husband home one last time and a new era. the the reality of all this heading home this hour on this night fr country that would be fixated on nothing else these next few days. a friday night then as it is now. but as different as night and

day. that is why we are breaking to understand the brave from everything we knew 50 years ago tonight. better to see the man through the met and we beginith knew jack kennedy really was. not that clueless rate and tonight, jfk is the pragmatic politician that you might not know and he does some remarkable things. lessons and warnings for it the president then and now. that is what issthis what about john kennedy. how there was no predictable mold to john kennedy. that is what defined him in history and leaves us guessing in history. just ask a historian.

rick, this happened after the fact, but let's go back who he was, and i think one thing that comes through loud and clear is not easily labeled, not a conservative but very pragmatic. >> and these are terms the change with every generation. it is the one at was supposed to be in the early 1960s and jfk as a politician, of course, always one of these terms to be flexible.

this includes mold. it has pretty much been debunked by historians if you look at his backing of the civil right movement. he was kind of weak kneed the first couple of years and then offense finally pushed into it and he got more liberal on the issue. talking about his tax cut policy, which is what i think what you really want to talk about here is jfk who started out fairly conservative on tax cuts and he was not a conservative when it came to government policy. so it is a mixed bag. >> he did go after this industry and the irony, i will get into

this with my day in san fran david asman, the message that he was trying to convey. it was always about getting this united states off the map that the russians were beating us in space, we had kind of lost our prestige he was concerned about that and it was a slowdown that he wanted to bring us out of that but ironically with tax cuts and things that wou be friendly to businesses, including cuts in investment. so had he lived, do you think ultimately -- but those taxcuts did go into effect i did have the desired effect but they said that they would? would be a success more than lyndon johnson ultimately would? >> let's talk about this. because one of the things that's important to understand is when he first comes into office, he is concerned about deficits as

are most americans and he was actually opposed to tax cuts and then he says that we need a tax cut to get this economy going. and eventually the revenues will start to inccease. >> at that time come about, that was actually considered part of keynesianism. you had some liberals who said that it's really all about spending. and jfk rejected that, he rejected what was favored, which

was let's have a lot of spending programs. neil: would he have gone along with lbj's plan and i. >> i am not so sure that he would have. because he was very concerned about how the impacof these deficits were going to be on the country. but he rejected the idea that we should have deficits define economic policy. because he said that if we can get the economy going, and we will have much greater productivity and ultimately this will increase. and if you look at that, but he had put it into place, he did not just cut the marginal tax rates from 91% on the 70% for personal income taxes, he also cut corporate taxes and he also made itshorter that they close up a lot of loopholes and $3.5 billion in loopholes that actually raise revenue for the federal government.

>> he was an advocate of the system. i want to thank you. that's a very good perspective. a lot you might be watching thing that is what neil and rick are saying there's no way to jfk said that. but yes, he did. check this out. >> every dollar lease frm taxation will help create a new job. and these new jobs and salaries create other jobs and salaries and the created tax cuts. creating more jobs and more income across the boad, top to bottom cuts in both corporate and peonal income taxes. >> can you imagine any modern liberal state in agreement or president obama saying the agreement the thing is that he believed in growth for everybody. he did not believe in blaming one group against another, pitting one group against

another. his famous phrase was a rising tide lifts all votes. the goal nowadays for the modern liberal and esident obama is included in us, his income redistribution and that trumps the goal of growth for erybody. they are more interested in this is not just saying a sameness, this is why friends of resident kennedy like joseph also been others saythat he didn't like liberals. he did not like liberals because he believed that liberals would sacrifice whats good for the entire country for the sake of their ideological commitment and ss does the wall street editorial pae. bob bartley and milton friedman is to say that, it is very often a corporation. >> you ever wonder what he would think today of veterans that

provide $85 billion per month to keep the market goin and the economy going? >> that's a good question. i don't think he would be in favor of it because he sees the reaction. neil: the things a lot easier for conservatives to say, we have 90 plus and he brings it down to 70 or whatever the

federal government will ultimately end up with more revenue and that is the heart of tax cutting you a nice breeze. and that is what kennedy embraced and that's exactly the opposite view of the current administration. neil: thank you, david, thank you so much. and would he endorse the big health care law that is now a mess today? meethe businessowner who says it's driving her to drink. >> obamacare had negatively impacted us. i had no children or history of drug abuse. not yet.

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>> i received notice from blue cross blue shield in september that my health care plan was going to be canceled and it was going to be replaced by one that had been chosen for me and i will never except for someone to make my health care choice for me. i have no children. i have no history of alcohol or drug abuse yet. okay rematch because this is driving me to drink. [laughter] neil: that was good. complaining about the health care law last week. theeceo joins rightnow. an argument for the problems of this whole lot. so where are you now and s there any improvement?

that averages about 136%. for me and my gender, it's just nder 200%. >> i said in my testimony that i think that every individual should have affordable health care. and there is a way to go about it. i don't think what you want to do is have the individuals that are here.

neil: so where do you think that we lay right now and are you'll like others that we have had here, better something than nothing? >> and the government is actually chipping away at my freedom. my freedom to choose the health care services that i want, i just can't -- i cannot accept that. neil: so you wouldn't be eligible for the subsidies. those cut off for families, having even said that, this does

settle down. it gives people time to read those and all the options that are out there and evething will be okay and sheila, you needn't be driven to drink. this will work out. what do you think? >> they are off track. and business owners like myself are not going to accept it and the government needs to understand and this is absolutely unacceptable. so i don't think it's going to go away. so from what i've heard the past few days, it is definitely not going away. this is just stirring it up and

we, the people, we are tired of it. neil: thank you, sheila. >> thank you. neil: do any of you remember the protest things to push on unemployment benefits past the 99 week when the agreement that was 300 days ago. the democrats are pushing for we went out and asked people a simple question: how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even ough we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed much is the official retirement age. ♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪

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>> has been 240 weeks and 11 temporary extension nce the first unemployment benefits were

filed. instead of pushing for more handouts, maybe they should be pushing for more jobs. linda is here to hash it out with adam lashinsky. this is the type of backwards thinking that we have been getting accustomed to coming out of washington. and this includes addressing the underlying structural issues. at this point, we should be having meaningful discussion about ta reforms and pro-growth and pro-busins policies and instead what we are hearing from is more handouts and welfare and keeping americns on this. this is perpetuating the problem neill i guess things are ptty bad. but are we just, are we making a bigger mess of this?

>> i will say straight out. i don't know what the right amount of time is. so i am trying to be humble about that. but what i do know is that the people, obviously we still have high unemployment and people are ill hurting and we are cutting the social safety net in other ways as well. we saw what happened with food stamps and we saw what has happened with a great number of states refusing to participate in the affordable care act which has ramifications on people like th. so what i am argug for is that we cannot cannot do all of these things at once. we have to figure out how to take care of people, whether it is extending unemployment benefits or not, i don't know. i don't think, i don't buy the argument that this encourages people to not look for work. it is not like they are living hi on the hog with unemployment benefits. >> this is intended to be a short-term supplement. if there really was more correlation between increasing

the jobless benefits, why would we not just extend them indefinitely or for a lifetime? the reason is because there is a correlation and as we see jobless benefits irease, there's a positive correlation with a reduction in that incentive to actually go out and look for a job. of course, that is not all people, but on the margin, there is not a fact. neil: i think what happened is that people have gotten used to the government as a backup. the big banks and know that the government will always have their back, you know, those behind on their mortgages, those have a job, the trouble is the government doesn't have enough money. it might sou cool o say that the well has run dry, but it has. we are knee-deep out here. >> i know that i am supposed to disagree with you, but i think that you are right. people have come to think of the government as a backstop and i think the government should be a

backstop. neil: but there's a limit to be had, right? >> yes, quite literally there are limits. so i do think we should have a policy discussion on what it should and. i think though that when pople are hungry, that is where you end it. and it's debatable as to whether or n the well has run dry. we still have tremendous economic power in this country to help people in need and we are not there yet. >> my fear is that even when they say that we are home free, the fact of the matter is that it's all a credit line. and we are we're going to have to make some hard choices here. >> we certainly are. and i think, the other gues is exactly right that we need to have a discussion of oneness needs to end. i would like to see our political leaders stepped out and say that we know you don't want to stay on the government. we know that you don't want to

be reliant on the federal government indefinitely. so i would like to hear more of we need the ameeican public off of that moving them back into the private sector. taking some responsibility for the individuals. that is the type of proposal that we need to be hearing from officials. neil: i would just add that we have made difficult choices and they are not always good choices. we have crumbling roads and bridges and we don't he enough people who have access to good medical care. we have cut down on food stamps. we have cut down on the military. we have made some tough choices. and were going to have to make more. neil: times are tough, but they are not depression tough. i think that we have to make tougher decisions because that does not match the reality of the economic recovery or the resources that you say that we have. >> the problem is the way that we have this civil conversation among the three of us, that's not the way that the conversation happens in

congress. there's another side that said let's cut everything because all of these programs are bad. [laughter] neil: i want to thank you. in the meantime, the latest privacy invasion and the government. and this one could be outright illegal. we debated and you decided. we will have that next

the one you have probably heard about this. the government is constantly tracki the vehicle, it's like, oh my goodness, he beats his children and their. [laughter] enact critics are saying it's a

massive privacy invasion. we have two individuals on this topic. >> i think it's more than creepy, i think it's unacceptable. to have a device in your vehicle that tracks what you're doing and if you pass the light, all of these specifics that are now unregulated. the government h yet to regulate who can use that for what purposes it's like oh, i got ke oh, i got this and they tried to introduce that and try to use that against people as evidenced. >> what do you think we might do

think that this can gooo far? >> you definitely can't go too far. when they are tracking how many people are in your ca, how fast you're going, if there is an argument in the car, that is a very large invasion of privacy and it goes beyond big brother where there is nowhere that is off-limits and you can't have a conversation withoutomeone hearing it. >> you should see the knucklehead i had driving. >> we want to track this person, we think that they are suspicious. when they track the personor days and months and years, the appeals was gone when police put tracking devices and thus not an invasion ofivacy.

>> so what if you are carrying a cell phone or iphone and they contracted through that. >> the argument is that we need to do this now and we need too make it a more blunt intrument. so marty has a device in a car. >> you're absolutely right. the information is being disseminated in a new car already has a black box in it so i can re-create what happen at a time that crashed. >> let's say let's say today she realizes i'm veering off the road. and then she could interpret that to mean that i am dodging

t. >> they can use that against you in a divorce proceeding. >> and she is saying what if the couple decides they want to divorce and someone starts to monitor the other couple. monitor the other couple. where are the limits? hi honey, did you get e toaster cozy? yep. goall the cozies. [ grandma ] with n fedexne rate, i could ll a box and ship it r onflatat rate. so i kn untilt was full. you'd be crazy not to. is tt nana? [ male announcer ] fedex one rate. simple, flat rate shipping with the reliability of fedex. just by talking to a helmet. it grabbed the patient's rerd before we even picked himp. it found out the doctor we needed was at st. anne's. wiggle your toes. [ driver ] and it got his okay on treatment from miles away. it even pulled strings with the stoplights.

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pop in the drum of any machine... ♪ ...to wash any size load. it dissoes in an temperature, even cold. tideod pop in. stand out. neil: another feature of obamacare after the midterm election process. some say it's no coincidence here. >> it points out just how determined that harry reid a the democrats were, shutting

down the government by october 1. and of course the first bill we passed would totally be from obamacare, and we knew that it went straight to a compromise, a one year suspension of the whole thg and that really gave them this about giving your adversary the graceful way to exit. and he wll have a compromise against ourselves. neil: he is actually doing it for other reasons with the impact of all that, which will be devastating on millions of folks who are likely at the very least senior policy trying to say that after the election, the reality, i imagine he won't let that happen. >> we know the people are getting hurt.

we just read the letter and i thought, okay, they found one person in the country that obamacare has really worked for. the people in texas, it was like a thousand to one the other way. so i won't know who they are going to find ere the can say, okay, here's someone we actually helped. neil: while you are here, with the jfk assassination, we are talking about how texas just has a scar and a stigma attached to it for so long. despite all the friendly crowd and everything on it. that was just a heat city and a heat state for so long. >> it was so tough. i was a small child, a little bitty kid and i will never forget our elementary teacher coming in and sayg that president kennedy has been shot and we just couldn't believe it

and pele were crying all over and that lived100 miles east of dallas, and we just couldn't believe it, we are putting ourselves on ospitality. and kennedy and other people were saying that they were trying to win back texas. but my understanding, i love to hear the adults talk. he was asked to come to texas because there is a rift between johnson and yarborough. >> he was really blanketing the state. >> i never hed that one before. but yes. when a man has been shot and killed, there is no way you're going to hold them for some comment like that. >> guess that he was warned

that it was a very toxic environment and he had been pushed and shoved them in there was a lot of violence there already. and i don't know if texas really ever laid that down. the people are clearly happy to see them. and how long did this take for texas to get over? >> i don't think it has been completely gone over. when people hear you are from texas, as we have talkedabout hono they still ask, oh, yes, and you know about kennedy being killed, so it's still international, i wish they would have thought of this soap opera or something else. but too often they think back to . even 50 years later. but it was a blight upon texas to a man who is coming rlly to help heal people.

neil: he was coming to pass over this coming and he was concerned enough about his reelection that he did this. and it was a cauious jfk going. and in retrospect, do you think it's added caution? >> oh, absolutely. >> i say that and then we have a president that is not cautious about making any political trips, he makes them every week. neil: they raise a lot of money. >> yes, but it mmkes them more cautious, and people think about that scene and you know i still have the life magazine of those scenes in my office so those were tough days. very tough days. and it is embarrassing and especially he really was being magnanimous coming to texas, he wanted to bea peace maker and

bring the factions together. and th was a guy believed in lower taxes and helping the economy. neil: absolutely. thank you, congressman. in the meantime, you know the we are remembering someone else on this day. twenty-three years ago. maaret thatcher stepped down as the prime minister of great britain. we will have it for you. very useful advice for bny mellon combines investment management & investment servicing, giving us unique insights which help us attract the industry's brightest minds who create powerful strategies for a country's investments which are used to build new schools to build more bright minds. invested in the world. bny mellon.

neil: i want you to go back 23 year years ago today. margaret thatcher stepping down from office.

let's put the tape back to that day and try to relate it to a different guy. >> the debt problems that we have a long-term. >> we have done it wiih the trade unions to control and victimize the individual worker. without the loving hand, monopolies can stifle competition's and the vulnerable can be exploited. >> we are done enabling families to own their home. >> giving people choice and public services. >> consumers do better when there is choice and competition. e real issue was deied by my honorable friends, how best to build on the achiements of the 1980s remapped the 1980s are now calling us wih foreign policy. because the cold war has been over for 20 years. >> we left out part of that.

get a clue. okay, a former thatcher advisor here on her legacyhen and now. now, very interesting contrast juxtaposed against this president's ongoing message. what do you glean from that? >> i have to ay that it doesn't compare with margaret thatcher is a world leder. margaret thatcher was there talking about why free markets work and why capitalism works and why policies actually advanced individual freedom actuallyucceed, and she demonstrated this in great britain in t 1980s, rolling back the frontiers of socialism in taking britain off of its

knees, cutting government spending, cutting taxes, and you look at the united states today with barack obama implementing exactly the opposite kinds of policy and this is $17 trillion in debt, facing a pepsi in the long run, possibly and then you see a reversal of these very damaging big government anti-free-market polics. so barack obama them anyways is the antithesis of margaret thatcher and that is why america looks like a superpower on the path to decline. neil: the british accent works for me. and here is what i have to ask about. the history is pretty consistent on what you get from a streamlined government, tax cuts, trying to promote business activity and not vilify it. that under republican and democratic presidents in this

day, we are looking back at john kennedy, tax cuts came back to fruition sadly after his death. i'm wondering w that message doesn't come through or that liberals tend to think that that's just a lucky break. >> that's an extremely good point, actually. president obama is a leader in demaio, frank. america is looking more like great britain in the 1970s. britain had to go to the imf for a loan for it to avoid bankruptcy because it had built up such huge levels of debt as a result of overspending and margaret thatcher made the point that the problem with socialist government is that eventually they run out of policy with money topend and at we are seeing in america today is a deep-seated antibusiness mentality about this administraion, that is the mentality th is driving euro two destruction today.

and it's a mentality that will ruin the united states. i do think the leadership lessons provided by them are badly needed here today in america. neil: it's always good to have you. thank you so much, my friend. when we come back to remembering this other anniversary, what if i told you that these fellows on the right would not have been possible without john kennedy? what i am saying is that he actually invented the internet. actually invented the internet. sorry, al go this is the quicksilver cash back card from capil one. it's not the "limit the cash i earnvery month" card. it's not the "i only earn decent rewards at the gas station" card. it's the no-games, no-signing up, everyday-rewarding, kung-fu-fighting, silver-lightning-in-a-bottle, bringing-home-the-bacon cash back card. this is the quicksilver card from capital one. unlimited 1.5% cash back on eve purchase, everywhere, every single day.

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[ male announcer ] prilosec otc. one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. a confident retirement. thosereams, there's just no way we're going to let them die. ♪ like they helped millions of others. .. in reach. ♪ neil: one thing that is lost is what john kennedy not only did on tax cuts, being pragmatic to grow a business, but what he did for the space program and the ancillary effects thatit it had on almost all things technology. i firmly believe in my desk and

argued is that it's not -- if it weren't for john kennedy, i don't think we would have a gadget nation the technology. because he provided a foundation that encourage that because it all began with space. that also means s because of him we had tanks, so we din't exactly hit it perfectly. but we have two guests on the jfk tech boom. what do you make of that? that he provided the foundation for a lot of these companies as well? >> i think you make a great point. when you think about it, other than our national defense, it is really, as i recall, the las time the government really worked effectively. they took aproject they are that was really kind of unsolvable. they llocated a certain amount of money, which they did exceed, but they did the unthinkable and in a relatively short timeframe. ght now we are going the opposite way where we allocate a

lot of money for things like obamacare, and it just gets worse by the day. >> i think you're on a great point. the legacy that kennedy provided was not necessarily political come but i think it was in terms of nspiratitional. he understood what the world looked at and the implications of what he suggested them what it would be and were he alive today, ithink he would be proud of what in fact has been created using this to start. neil: we always forget that the idea wise, at that time, to stop the soviets because there is a real concern. but fter that he was genuinely concerned about man reaching beyond this planet, and that started this technological fervor. but it eased a bit when we cut

back on the program to the likes of whic really was a full retreat and something that we dominated. and that's what worries me. >> i think you are right. although on the other hand i would say that it was the internet, you know, with government agencies, but it really expanded and exploited when private industry was allowed to spread its wings, if you will and if you think about it, the one industry that is probably the most lightly regulated right now and is growing the most is anything related to the internet. others like industry and transportation all have the tentacles of government around and i think when government steps back, industries are allowed to grow and profit. neil: we also have a comparison with data markets. it ultimately got the word, john kennedy had been shot, and he would not finish above finished

above 1000 for another 10 years and it closed again until 1982. we ar seei this kind of game that we established since that time, that was done in one year this past year. so what do you make about? >> i think it's a combination of things, but right at the top of the kermit is the fact that we have this said, you know, pulling all of the easy money into the market and profits have remained steady. you know, some of the tech companies have done well, you know, oil prices have remained stable and we have a couple of underpinnings. but i think it's really do to ben bernanke and now probably still the markets will go up. when you step back from all of that, in the log term, the markets go up. >> yes, just come and they go up for one reason a they have

since world war ii. we were leveraged roughly 10 to one in financial markets and by the 1960s it was 30 to one. coming in it was 100 to one. so cl. ladies and gentlemen, "imus in the morning." >> i'm just reading this interview that mad dog russo gave to bob reeseman in the "new york daily news" where, man, rousseau drops a hammer on his old partner mike. did you read that, lou? >> yeah. he was pretty critical of him. >> you know it, i know it. >> he is a fraud. >> well -- >> listen -- >> according to