The Great Society

THE GREAT SOCIETY

The United States mourned when President John F. Kennedy (1960–1963) was assassinated on November 22, 1963. But despite the tragedy, the country was experiencing an era of unprecedented economic health. President Kennedy had already proposed a series of government-funded programs aimed at spreading U.S. prosperity to people still mired in poverty, such as the residents of Appalachia or of the urban ghettoes. When Kennedy's Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1968) assumed the presidency, he pushed to make many of Kennedy's proposals into law. Capitalizing on U.S. stability, as well as the emotions of Kennedy's death, Johnson proposed anti-poverty, civil rights, education, and health care laws. In a speech at the University of Michigan in May 1964, Johnson said he hoped these programs would help create a "Great Society."

Great Society programs, as they came to be known, assisted millions, but they were very controversial. In the short run, funding for these costly programs decreased, as the United States spent more and more fighting the Vietnam War (1964–1975). In the long run, many critics have charged that these initiatives resulted in high taxes, "big government," and that they actually hurt the very people they were designed to help. Nonetheless, Great Society programs such as Medicare, which assists the elderly with medical expenses, remained popular and in the late 1990s they were still a crucial part of many Americans' lives.

Great Society programs were not the first large scale effort by the federal government to aid the disadvantaged. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932–1945) promised a "New Deal" to all Americans when he was elected. This "New Deal" was a long list of employment, income-assistance, and labor legislation, and it also had many critics.

But President Roosevelt's New Deal came at a time of mass poverty, when the United States and the world were living through the tough economic times of the Great Depression (1929–1939). Having emerged from World War II (1939–1945) as the world's most powerful nation, the United States experienced astounding economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s. Many Americans who barely had enough to eat during the Depression, now found themselves living in brand new homes and driving automobiles.

President Kennedy believed this national wealth could be used to uplift those who had not yet shared in the good economic times. Particularly disadvantaged were African Americans, who faced legal segregation in the South and poverty and discrimination in the North. In the tradition of Roosevelt's New Deal, Kennedy proposed employment, education, and health care legislation.

This was the legacy President Lyndon Johnson (1963–1969) hoped to fulfill with his Great Society. A masterful politician, Johnson may have lacked Kennedy's public grace, but he made up for it with political savvy. A former leader in the Senate, Johnson would need these skills to enact his ambitious programs which faced serious opposition in Congress.

During the summer of 1964 Johnson challenged Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, the foundation for what came to be known as the "war on poverty." Johnson also proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which combated racial discrimination. Johnson said enacting these bills would be a fitting tribute to Kennedy.

Johnson's initiatives seemed to be popular with voters. He won the 1964 election in a landslide. Capitalizing on what appeared to be a mandate from the American people, Johnson quickly proposed a wide range of programs for mass transportation, food stamps, immigration, and legal services for the poor. Bills aiding elementary, secondary, and higher education were also passed. Medicaid and Medicare were established to assist the poor and elderly, respectively, with medical treatment.

Other initiatives created the Department of Housing and Urban Development, aimed at improving housing conditions, particularly in crowded cities, and Project Head Start, which aided poor children in their earliest years of education. The National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were created in an effort to expand access to culture.

These programs cost billions of dollars but Johnson presented them not only as moral and just but also as a way to further expand the U.S. economy using education, job training, and income assistance. Johnson's party, the Democrats, won big again in the 1966 elections. However, forces were already converging, which would make it difficult to carry out Great Society programs. Across the country cities were exploding with demonstrations and even riots. Some wondered why problems seemed to be getting worse, just as billions of dollars had been committed to solving them.

A more daunting problem lay halfway around the world. The War in Vietnam claimed an increasing amount of Johnson's attention. And the war became just as controversial as Johnson's War on Poverty. It was also becoming more and more expensive as troops and supplies poured into the region to combat the "Viet Cong" guerilla fighters and the North Vietnamese Army. Johnson was pressured to hike taxes to cover the soaring costs of the war and his Great Society measures. Johnson's need for a tax increase gave political opponents leverage to demand domestic spending cuts. By 1968 Johnson's top economic and political priority was the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. This commitment ultimately led to him refusing to seek reelection as the Democratic presidential candidate.

That year also saw California Governor Ronald Reagan (1911–) fail in his bid to become the Republican presidential candidate. But twelve years later, when the nation's economy was stagnant, Reagan was elected president on a platform that identified many of Johnson's programs as the source of the nation's economic woes. Republicans like Reagan claimed the burden of Great Society initiatives on taxpayers had become too great while poverty only seemed to worsen. "It was 25 years ago that Lyndon Johnson announced his plans for 'The Great Society,"' the conservative magazine National Review wrote in 1989. "Today the phrase refers only to a bundle of welfare programs that have helped make the federal budget a chronic problem."

Republicans stepped up their attack into the 1990s and in 1994 they won majorities in both houses of Congress. They continued to criticize federal spending on programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, more commonly called welfare, which were greatly expanded under the Great Society. Some Democrats said the attacks unfairly singled out society's most vulnerable citizens. Republicans argued that such social programs lead to dependency, which creates problems for both the beneficiary and the nation. Even President Bill Clinton (1993—), a Democrat, declared an "end to welfare as we know it."

Despite the criticism a diverse selection of Great Society programs, from Medicare to public television, remain politically popular. The ultimate legacy of the Great Society will surely be debated for decades to come.

See also: Medicaid, Medicare, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vietnam War

FURTHER READING

Brown-Collier, Elba K. "Johnson's Great Society: Its Legacy in the 1990s." Review of Social Economy, Fall, 1998.

Dallek, Robert. Flawed Giant: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1960–1973. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Fraser, Steve, and Gary Gerstle. The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930–1980. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Moore, Allison. "From Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism." Yale Law Journal, December, 1996.

Unger, Irwin. The Best of Intentions: The Triumph and Failure of the Great Society Under Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

the great society rests on abundance and liberty for all. it demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. but that is just the beginning.

president lyndon baines johnson, 1964