Great Society Program Analysis

Once the American federal spending was focused on Vietnam, things started to go downhill. This shift of focus led to a lot of unhappiness in different parts of society. The main purpose of the Great Society was to benefit the American society and to beat the poverty epidemic plaguing America. A cartoon from the magazine Punch in 1967 titled “The Train Robbery” shows a train titled “U.S. Economy: and shows President Lyndon B. Johnson dismantling train cars titled “The Great Society”. Above the train, the word “Vietnam” is written in the cloud of smoke. The meaning of this cartoon is that President Johnson was taking money away from the Great Society in attempt to gather more money that was needed to pay for the war in Vietnam (Doc E). A graph from the United States Department of Commerce Census Bureau shows the percentage of persons below the poverty level by racial categories. The graph shows a steady decline from the years 1959 to 1974, however the figures for “all non-whites” as well as “blacks” remained three times higher than those for whites (Doc H). From 1965 through 1968, there was still unrest within urban society because African Americans were still demanding help, jobs, health care benefits and public transportation. Many domestic funds were left unsustained or began to diminish because of the large diversion of funds to the Vietnam War effort. Despite this, President Lyndon B. Johnson still wanted

During Johnson’s presidency, the federal government significantly extended its domestic responsibilities in attempt to transform the nation to what Johnson called the “Great Society,” in which poverty and racial intolerance ceased to exist. A previously unsurpassed amount of legislation was passed during this time; numerous laws were passed to protect the environment, keep consumers safe, reduce unfairness in education, improve housing in urban areas, provide more assistance to the elderly with health care, and other policies to improve welfare. Johnson called for a “War on Poverty,” and directed more funds to help the poor; government spending towards the poor

After the failure of the Articles of Confederation, early Americans were hesitant to create a new federal government and feared that it would become too powerful. To avoid this, the Founding Fathers created the Constitution of the United States of America. The new Constitution was based on several basic principles that limited the power of the federal government and kept it from gaining too much power. These systems helped set a base for the federal government while limiting the powers that it withheld. One of the main parts of the federal government are the three branches: Legislative, Executive and Judicial.

Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society altered the character and scope of the federal government by making a significant statement by the social programs he put into to place and by sending help to the public in order to battle poverty after his declaration that he had begun a war on poverty. It directly acknowledged that the American people needed help and that help was in the process of coming. The character of the

The idea was that the government would represent the people. The Constitution established a two house Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Senate would include two members from each state and the House of Representatives would have members appointed according to the population of the state. Senators would be chosen by state legislatures while the Representatives would be elected by the people. This was the first step toward the expansion of democracy. The Constitution did not set any rules for qualifications to vote; they left that up to the states. The Constitution strengthened national authority. It gave the president the job of enforcing the law and commanding the military. It gave Congress the right to levy taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce, declare war, and foreign policy. The Constitution declared the national legislature as the "supreme Law of the Land." It did however leave the majority of day to day affairs up to the states such as education and law enforcement. It created a checks and balances system between the states and the national government. This was the idea to prevent any branch of the national government from dominating the other two.

During 1959, the percentage of the nonwhite population below the poverty level was at 53.3 percent, at the end of President Johnson’s term, the percentage was at 29.5 percent; this trend of declining poverty was also seen in the white population (Document 7). President Johnson wasn’t a president of just the nonwhite groups, he was also a champion of the poor and this chart shows that consistency of President Johnson’s policy towards both the white, blacks, and other minorities. Movements by Johnson such as the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development sought to provide affordable federal housing to the poor. Additionally, President Johnson also sought to create a minimum wage system that provided workers with a (semblance of a) steady income. One of the main things that President Johnson has done was create the Community Agency Action (CAA) to help provide economic opportunity to local residents. Although this program led to the division in the Democratic party over disagreement over the allocations of funds, this program embodied President Johnson’s concept of being directly involved in the welfare of the people. Debates in the government under the Great Society program fought not only to help the poorer but also as to how the funds are spent to help the poor the most (compared to previous incidents of government officials lining their own

It was already determined that the Articles of Confederation did not give enough power to the centralized government, but deciding the particulars of the new Constitution was a difficult task. In this new federal system there would be both national as well as state governments, but all authority would ultimately come from the people. The new Constitution gave broad powers to the national government, such as the power to tax, to print money, and to regulate commerce as well as to pass laws necessary to for fulfilling its other functions. This national government was to be the highest law of the land; however it also recognized the individual states and entrusted other important powers to

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society was a set of social, political, and domestic programs put in place between 1964 and 1965, in response to the country’s quickly fading post-war prosperity. It strived to reduce social inequalities (especially racial discrimination) and boost the formerly thriving economy. The Great Society encompassed virtually all social policy sections, like civil rights, poverty and housing, education, health, welfare, arts and culture, transportation, environment, rural development, and labor. With such an ambitiously large program to follow, Johnson’s Great Society was bound to have a few flaws, and its success wasn’t guaranteed. It did, however, lead to several major social changes that revolutionized the United

“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” ("Avalon Project - Constitution of the United States : Preamble," n.d.) The constitution divided government authority by giving the national government certain specific powers, and reserving all other powers to the states or the people. The constitution has preserved the basic design of federalism. The constitution grants three types of power to national government. Examples are expressed, implied, and inherent powers;

The Great Society was a series of domestic programs that were established during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. The Great Society was created to ensure equal rights for each individual within the United States. The implementation of the Great Society significantly increased the involvement of the federal government in the lives of the citizens. The Great Society increased the federal government’s involvement in education, civil rights, and environmental protection. Through the establishment of the Great Society, the government of the United States became more involved within the education of its citizens.

Great society was a reform program and an idealistic call promoted by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 for improved environmental, conservation, racial, educational, and health programs. Johnson wanted to build a better American by government 's help and funding. In 1965, Congress passed many Great Society measures, including Medicare, civil rights legislation, and federal aid to education. It represented government began to reform the society and started to play a more significant role in the country.

This investigation will analyze until what extent was Lyndon Johnson the Great Society a success or a failure. The Great Society was a set of domestic programs created by democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and 1965, the intention of The Great Society programs was to eliminate poverty and racial injustice. After John F. Kennedy's assassination, Johnson was left with the duty to finish Kennedy's job on creating a new frontier for americans. Issues addressed in The Great Society program were education, poverty, urban planning, medical care and transportation. Many of The Great Society proposals were similar to John F. Kennedy's “New Frontier” and were aimed to complete Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal agenda.

Constitutions are ordinances set forth by a legislative body to establish the foundations of a government. The United States of America wrote their constitution to set the rules in place for the branches of government, their separate powers, and the limitations of the federal government. Since the United States operates under a federalist government, each state is responsible for establishing their own governments. There arise the states’ constitutions. There are inevitable differences between the content of a constitution of a state versus that of the federal government.

The fundamental characteristics of a constitutional government contain of a written document which establishes the rules, rights, and principles of the government. These characteristics are the establishment of individual rights, federalism, higher law, separation of powers, and checks and balances. The establishment of all these rules, rights, and principles are all an

The first way that a constitution can limit the government is if it acts as a social contract. The social contract gives people the right to consent to be governed and if the people withdrew that consent then the right of revolution could be acted upon. Therefore, government attains its authority from the consent