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The Great Society was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted in the United States on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969). Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. In addition, several major initiatives in the areas of education, health, urban problems, transportation, consumer protection, and the environment were launched during this period. The Great Society was loosely based on the New Deal domestic agenda instituted by Franklin Roosevelt and initially drew from John F. Kennedy 's stalled New Frontier programs. ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS Unlike the New Deal, which was a response to a severe economic crisis, the Great Society emerged in a period of unprecedented prosperity. President Kennedy had proposed a tax cut, which was enacted in February 1964, three months after his death. Gross National Product rose 10% in first year of tax cut, and economic growth averaged a rate of 4.5 percent from 1961 to 1968. Disposable personal income rose 15% in 1966 alone. Despite the drop in tax rates, federal revenues increased dramatically from $94 billion in 1961 to $150 billion in 1967. In spite of the positive economic conditions, other crises confronted the United States. Official discrimination existed throughout the United States and civil unrest, particularly in the struggle for African-Americans to achieve political, social, and economic equality, unsettled the country. Cold War confrontations continued, most dramatically in Southeast Asia and Vietnam . Further, demographic trends threatened future economic and social prosperity. As the Baby Boom generation aged, two and a half times more Americans would enter the labor force between 1965 and 1980 than had between 1950 and 1965. ANN ARBOR SPEECH Johnson summarized his goals for the Great Society in a speech at the University Of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan on May 22 , 1964 . Speechwriter Richard N. Goodwin had coined the phase "the Great Society," and Johnson had used the expression from time to time before the Michigan speech, but he had not emphasized it until this address. In this address, which preceded the election-year party conventions, Johnson described his plans to solve pressing problems: “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.”http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/640522.asp President Johnson's speech at the University of Michigan from the LBJ Library Soon afterward he told reporters, “I’m going to get the best minds in the country to work for me.” 1965 LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM: PRESIDENTIAL TASK FORCES President Kennedy had employed several task forces comprised of scholars and experts to craft New Frontier legislation and to deal with foreign affairs. The Technocratic approach appealed to Johnson, in part because the task forces would work in secret and outside of the existing governmental bureaucracy and directly for the White House staff. Almost immediately after the Ann Arbor speech, 14 separate task forces began studying nearly all major aspects of United States society under the guidance of presidential assistants Bill Moyers and Richard N. Goodwin . The average task force had nine members, and generally was comprised of governmental experts and academicians. Only one of the Task Forces on the 1965 Legislative Program addressed foreign affairs (Foreign economic policy), the rest were charged with domestic policy (Agriculture, Anti-recession policy, Civil rights, Education, Efficiency and economy, Health, Income maintenance policy, Intergovernmental fiscal cooperation, Natural resources, Pollution of the environment, Preservation of natural beauty, Transportation, and Urban problems). The task-force reports, drawn up separately, were submitted to the White House. Moyers circulated them to the agencies concerned and set up a new group of committees of government officials to evaluate the various recommendations. Experts on relations with Congress were also drawn into the deliberations to get the best advice on persuading the Congress to pass the legislation. Johnson reviewed these initial Great Society proposals at his Ranch with Moyers and Budget Director Kermit Gordon in late 1964. Many specific proposals were included in brief form in Johnson’s State Of The Union Address delivered on January 7 , 1965 . The task-force approach, combined with Johnson's electoral victory in 1964 and his talents in obtaining congressional approval, were widely credited with the success of the legislation agenda in 1965. Critics would later cite the task forces as a factor in a perceived elitist approach to Great Society programs. Also, because many of the initiatives did not originate from outside lobbying, those initiatives had no political constituencies that would support their continued funding. 1964 ELECTION AND THE EIGHTY-NINTH CONGRESS With the exception of the Civil Rights Act Of 1964 , the Great Society agenda was not a widely discussed issue during the 1964 Presidential Election campaigns. Johnson won the election with 61% of the vote, the largest percentage since the popular vote first became widespread in 1824, and carried all but six states. Democrats gained enough seats to control more than two-thirds of each chamber in the Eighty-ninth Congress with a 68-32 margin in the Senate and a 295-140 margin in the House of Representatives. The political realignment allowed House leaders to alter rules that allowed conservative Southern Democrats to kill New Frontier and Civil Rights legislation in committee, which aided efforts to pass Great Society legislation. In 1965 the first session of the Eighty-ninth Congress created the core of the Great Society. The Johnson administration submitted eighty-seven bills to Congress, and Johnson signed eighty-four, or 96%, arguably the most successful legislative agenda in American history. Unger, Irwin, 1996: 'The Best of Intentions: the triumphs and failures of the Great Society under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon': Doubleday, p. 104. MAJOR PROGRAMS Civil Rights Historian Alan Brinkley has suggested that the most important domestic achievement of the Great Society may have been its success in translating some of the demands of the forbade job discrimination and the segregation of public accommodations. The Voting Rights Act Of 1965 assured minority registration and voting. It suspended use of literacy or other voter-qualification tests that had sometimes served to keep African-Americans off voting lists and provided for federal court lawsuits to stop discriminatory poll taxes. It also reinforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by authorizing the appointment of federal voting examiners in areas that did not meet voter-participation requirements. The Civil Rights Act Of 1968 banned housing discrimination and extended constitutional protections to Indians on reservations. The Immigration And Nationality Services Act Of 1965 abolished national-origin quotas in immigration law. War on Poverty The most ambitious and controversial part of the Great Society was its initiative to end poverty. The Kennedy administration had been contemplating a federal effort against poverty. Johnson, who as a teacher had observed extreme poverty in Texas among Mexican-Americans, launched an "unconditional war on poverty" in the first months of his presidency with the goal of eliminating hunger and deprivation from American life. The centerpiece of the War On Poverty was the Economic Opportunity Act Of 1964 , which created an Office Of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs. The OEO reflected a fragile consensus among policymakers that the best way to deal with poverty was not simply to raise the incomes of the poor but to help them better themselves through education, job training, and community development. Central to its mission was the idea of " Community Action ," the participation of the poor themselves in framing and administering the programs designed to help them. The War on Poverty began with a $1 billion appropriation in 1964 and spent another $2 billion in the following two years. It spawned dozens of programs, among them the Job Corps , whose purpose was to help disadvantaged youths develop marketable skills; the Neighborhood Youth Corps , the first summer jobs established to give poor urban youths work experience and to encourage them to stay in school; VISTA , a domestic version of the Peace Corps , which sent middle-class young people on "missions" into poor neighborhoods; the Model Cities Program for urban redevelopment; Upward Bound , which assisted poor high school students entering college; legal services for the poor; the Food Stamps program; and Project Head Start , which offered preschool education for poor children. Education The most important educational component of the Great Society was the Elementary And Secondary Education Act of 1965, designed by Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel . It was signed into law on April 11 , 1965 , less than three months after it was introduced. It ended a long-standing political taboo by providing significant federal aid to public education, initially allotting more than $1 billion to help schools purchase materials and start special education programs to schools with a high concentration of low-income children. The Act established Head Start , which had originally been started by the Office of Economic Opportunity as an eight-week summer program, as a permanent program. The Higher Education Act Of 1965 increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships and low-interest loans for students, and established a National Teachers Corps. The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 offered federal aid to local schools districts to assist them to address the needs of children with limited English-speaking ability. Health The Social Security Act Of 1965 authorized Medicare and provided federal funding for many of the medical costs of older Americans. The legislation overcame the bitter resistance, particularly from the American Medical Association , to the idea of Publicly-funded Medicine or "socialized medicine" by making its benefits available to everyone over sixty-five, regardless of need, and by linking payments to the existing private insurance system. In 1966 welfare recipients of all ages through received medical care through the Medicaid program. Culture
Transportation The Department Of Transportation was created during the Great Society. The Urban Mass Transportation Act Of 1964 provided $375 million for large-scale urban public or private rail projects in the form of matching funds to cities and states and created the Urban Mass Transit Administration (now the Federal Transit Administration ). The National Traffic And Motor Vehicle Safety Act Of 1966 and the Highway Safety Act Of 1966 were enacted, largely as a result of Ralph Nader 's book '' Unsafe At Any Speed ''. Consumer protection In 1964 Johnson named Assistant Secretary of Labor Esther Peterson to be the first presidential assistant for consumer affairs. Cigarette Labeling Act of 1965 required packages to carry warning labels. Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 set standards through creation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . Fair Packaging and Labeling Act requires products identify manufacturer, address, clearly mark quantity and servings. Statute also authorizes permits HEW and FTC to establish and define voluntary standard sizes. The original would have mandated uniform standards of size and weight for comparison shopping, but the final law only outlawed exaggerated size claims. Child Safety Act of 1966 prohibited any chemical so dangerous that no warning can make its safe. Flammable Fabrics Act of 1967 set standards for children's sleepwear, but not baby blankets. Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 required inspection of meat which must meet federal standards. Truth-in-Lending Act of 1968 required lenders and credit providers to disclose the full cost of finance charges in both dollars and annual percentage rates, on installment loan and sales. Wholesome Poultry Products Act of 1968 required inspection of poultry which must meet federal standards. Land Sales Disclosure Act of 1968 provided safeguards against fraudulent practices in the sale of land. Radiation Safety Act of 1968 provided standards and recalls for defective electronic products. Environment , the Great Society included several new environmental laws to protect air and water. Environmental legislation enacted included:
THE LEGACIES OF THE GREAT SOCIETY Many Great Society initiatives, especially those that benefited the middle class, continue to exist in some form. Civil rights laws remain on the book in amended versions. Some programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, have been criticized as inefficient and unwieldy, but enjoy wide support and have grown considerably since the 1960s http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=32459. Federal funding of public and higher education has expanded since the Great Society era, and has maintained bipartisan support. Federal funding for culture initiatives in the arts, humanities, and public broadcasting have repeatedly been targets for elimination, but have survived. Interpretations of the War on Poverty remain controversial. Several observers have noted that funding for many Great Society programs became difficult beginning in 1968, chiefly due to the Vietnam War and Johnson's desire to maintain a balanced budget. The Office of Economic Opportunity was dismantled by the Nixon and Ford administrations, largely by transferring poverty programs to other government departments. Funding for many of these programs were further cut in President Ronald Reagan 's first Budget in 1981. , who denounced them in his 1984 book ''Losing Ground'' as being ineffective and creating an underclass of lazy citizens. One of Johnson's aides, Joseph A. Califano, Jr. , has countered that, "from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century." REFERENCES
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