The American Academy of Political and Social Science : Installation of 2006 Fellows : Andrew F. Brimmer: Kenneth Boulding Fellow

Installation of 2006 Fellows

Andrew F. Brimmer: Kenneth Boulding Fellow

“In the Spring of 1963, President Kennedy finally sent to Congress a Civil Rights Bill after the Birmingham demonstrations. But, he followed the advice of his brother, Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General. He advised the President not to base this legislation on the Fourteenth Amendment alone. That had been tried with the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which the U.S. Supreme Court had found unconstitutional. So the Attorney General recommended—and President Kennedy decided—that the Bill be based on the Interstate Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. At that time, I had just come down from the University of Pennsylvania to be Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs. The Secretary of Commerce was called upon by the White House to provide a justification for the legislation. Naturally, the Secretary of Commerce turned to his General Counsel and asked, “Can you provide this information?” The lawyer said “Yes; but the economists would have to do it.” So, the buck was passed down the line: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., the Under Secretary, turned to the Assistant Secretary and said, “Can we do it?” The A.S. turned to me and said: “Andy, can you do that?” I responded “Of course.”

“What I did was to design an Economic Model which enabled me to examine the differential impact of segregation and discrimination on African Americans—from the point of view of travel, entertainment, consumer expenditure patterns, and the level of money income. To do the analysis, I had the resources of the entire Commerce Department. I had the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Public Roads. This was before the U.S. Transportation Department was created. Using the techniques I had learned when I was in Academia, and in some respect pioneered, I was able to do computer simulations that tracked travel along three separate routes from Washington, D.C., (1) to Miami, Florida, (2) to New Orleans, and (3) to Chicago. The net result was that we were able to demonstrate that African Americans had to travel about twice as far and roughly twice as long as white Americans. This violated the Guidelines of the National Safety Council.

“Once the Public Accommodations Section of the Civil Rights Bill became law in the Summer of 1964, it was challenged by the defenders of segregation. The case quickly got to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld its constitutionality. The Court based its decision substantially on the Testimony I prepared. [Public Accommodations Section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964)]

“The other thing I would like to mention is the work I did with respect to the Federal Income Tax Cut of 1975. I left the Federal Reserve Board at the end of August, 1974, and went back up to Harvard University where I taught Economics and Finance in the Business School. In early September, 1974, President Gerald Ford, who had recently become President, invited me to a Conference on Inflation… and I had a very interesting conversation with him. I told him that I thought he needed more than slogans. So he said, “What?” And I said I believed he needed to provide additional stimulation, since the national economy was slowing down. The President said that he would like to receive any suggestions I might have.

“I worked for a couple of months doing a major study, using the Econometric Model developed by Data Resources with which I was also affiliated at that time. I did simulations which demonstrated in a variety of ways what the impact of different types of Federal Tax cuts would be on National Income, Output, and Employment, and, therefore, on the economy in general.

“I wrote the President a letter in December, 1974, summarizing the results of that study. I also made several recommendations. The key one was a ten percent rebate of the Federal Taxes due on 1974 income. To my pleasant surprise, after only a few weeks of consideration, President Ford came out in favor of it; the Democrats endorsed it; the Republicans endorsed it; and it was passed by Congress with little delay. It was introduced in the President’s State of the Union Message in January, and by the third week of April, 1975, it had been written into law. About $30 billion in stimulus was provided, and the 10 per cent Federal Income Tax rebate accounted for about $12 billion of the total.

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The views expressed herein are solely the opinions of the individuals and not those of the Academy.