The Great SocietyA War on Poverty

The War in Vietnam

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

New Frontier – Kennedy • jobless benefits,• aid to the children of unemployed workers,• The redevelopment of distressed areas,• An increase in Social Security payments• An increase in the minimum wage and an extension in coverage,• The provision of emergency relief to feed grain farmers, and• The financing of a comprehensive home-building and slum clearance

program.

The 1964 Election

•1964: Johnson v. Rep. Barry Goldwater. • Goldwater: Senator from Arizona. • Gave birth to the modern conservatism

•Johnson presented Goldwater as an extremist • Said Goldwater wanted to abolish the social welfare

programs of the New Deal.•‘Strike first’ mentality.

“The Daisy Ad”

“The Johnson Treatment”

• Reputation of being “overpowering and intimidating”

• Invaded personal space: nose to nose

• “persuasive and personable rather than elegant and charming”

The Great Society• A set of domestic programs

proposed or enacted in the United States on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson

• Medicare & Medicade• Head start Programs• HUD (Housing and Urban

Development)• Job Corps• Higway Safety Act• Fair Packaging and Labling Act• Water Quality and Clean Air

Acts

“We are going to assemble the best thought and broadest knowledge from all over the world to find these answers. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of conferences and meetings—on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. From these studies, we will begin

to set our course toward the Great Society.”- LBJ at the commencement at the University of Michigan, May 1964

War on Poverty“There are tens of millions of

Americans who are beyond the welfare state.

Taken as a whole there is a culture of poverty…bad health, poor housing, low levels of aspiration, and high levels of mental distress. Twenty percent of a nation, some 32,000,000.”

Michael Harrington, author of the Culture of Poverty 1962

WAR ON POVERTY

• Lyndon B. Johnson had initial success. • Early in 1964, he had declared an…

“unconstitutional war on poverty in America” and proposed sweeping legislation designed to help Americans “on the

outskirts of hope.”

Economic Opportunity Act• Enacted August of 1964. – $1 billion - youth programs, antipoverty measures,

small business loans, and job-training. • VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America)• Project Head Start: education for

underprivileged preschoolers• Public-works programs for poor

neighborhoods

War on Poverty• Medicare: social insurance -- coverage

for those 65 and over, • Medicaid: US health program for

individuals and families with low incomes and resources