Lyndon B Johnson: The Great Society

Reagan really focused on improving the economy during his presidency, with a plan he called Reaganomics, or supply side economics. The main parts of this plan were cuts on taxes and budgets, and monetary policy. Also, he wanted to reduce government regulation on businesses. He thought that these and increasing defense expenditures would heighten economic efficiency. Reagan managed to cut taxes by twenty five percent in three years. However, the plans did not work out at first, causing a recession that some call “The Great Inflation.” The national debt heightened substantially, and the rate of unemployment reached up to eleven percent. Despite these negative outcomes, the economy experienced a sudden growth and prosperity in 1983, which was

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

Reagan implemented policies based on supply-side economics and advocated a classical liberal and laissez-faire philosophy, seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts. Reagan’s outlook on economics was what he and the public called “Reaganomics”. “The blueprint for “Reaganomics,” was a sketched out supply-side approach to the economic, including massive cuts in income taxes, capital gains taxes, and corporate taxes,”(340). His platform advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing government spending. Reagan's policies proposed that economic growth would occur when marginal tax rates were low enough to spur investment, which would then lead to increased economic growth, higher employment, and wages. Reagan’s beliefs on cutting taxes were supported by ideas of William Sumner who believed that the best equipped to win the struggle for existence was the American businessman, and concluded that taxes and regulations serve as dangers to his survival. Reagan believed strong nations were composed of people who were successful at expanding their empires and these strong nations would survive in the struggle for dominance.

In 1963, when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in the streets of Dallas, Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson was elected into office. Grief-stricken Americans suffered greatly from Kennedy’s assassination, while Johnson used the shock of tragedy to his advantage. Johnson was extremely crafty, and little to almost none noticed how he used grief to his advantage. Johnson compelled Americans that Kennedy would have wanted the Great Society if he was still president, and people were captivated by his words, and swayed into action. Numerous things, both beneficial and detrimental came out of the Great Society. The Great Society was Johnson’s cure to America’s problems.

Reaganomics was economics policies which were propelled by United States President, Ronald Reagan during 1980s. These policies were based on fours pillars namely; reduction of the growth of government spending, reduction of income and capital gains marginal tax rates, reduction of government regulation of economy, and controlling of the money in supply so as to reduce inflation. Their basic aims were to lower taxes and create a leaner government. According to Reagan his decision was informed on stimulation of the economy taxes, financed by borrowing. Lowering taxes was aimed at reviving the economy, which in turn would see the increased tax revenues being used to offset the debts incurred (Niskanen

He inherited a misery index (the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates) of 19.99%. Under Reaganomics, sixteen million new jobs were created, and helped fuel an economic boom that lasted two decades. At the same time, not only did he cut tax rates, but the Tax Reform Act of 1986 simplified the income-tax code by eliminating many tax shelters, reducing the number of deductions and tax brackets. After years of drowning in unemployment, high taxes, and a slow economy, America was finally looking up. Ultimately, one of the reasons Reagan was the best president was because of his attentive ears for the public.

Lyndon B. Johnson was similar to Andrew Johnson who both became president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and President Lyndon B. Johnson was officially named president on November 22, 1963 after the famous John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Though President Lyndon had big shoes to fill after the beloved JFK was no longer in office he definitely had his own agendas. However, Johnson did not want to try to compete with JFK legacy but he did want to honor the civil rights bill that President Kennedy was working on before he passed away. President Johnson grew up in poverty and understood how to live without our basic necessities. Therefore one of his biggest accomplishments was getting Congress to approve the education and poverty of our

This, to Johnson, was the true aim of the Great Society—protecting the life of America, preserving liberty and happiness of the American people. The Great Society is a correction to the way mankind is living; it is not merely a reaction to the economical involvement or the historical backdrop of the Cold War. The Great Society was a necessity to correct America. Consequently, his Great Society legislation focuses on cities (developing community and aesthetically pleasing spaces), the countryside and the environment (engaging in conservation efforts to make beauty available to all), and education (funding not only programs and initiatives for all levels of schooling but also educational broadcasting for the public). Declaring “the Great Society is a place where the City of Man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce, but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community,” Johnson argued for a radical transformation within the government. It would go beyond securing natural rights and seek the fulfillment of the longings of the human soul. LBJ believed the Great Society should be implemented within three places: in America’s cities, countryside, and

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall, Texas on August 27, 1908. He grew up right there in his hometown. His parents were Samuel Elay Johnson Jr. and Rebekah Baines. He was accompanied by his siblings Sam Houston Johnson, Rebekah Johnson, Lucia Johnson, and Josefa Johnson. For school he would run to the nearby, one-room junction school. He grew up on a farm but his grandfather had a dream of him becoming a member of the U.S. senate. He was a responsible young adult and out of college he knew that he wanted a higher level of education. He enjoyed learning and teach others so he once dropped out for a year to be a principal and teach children of fifth, sixth, and seventh grades.

“Free at last, free at last....” President Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Hill County in the August of 1908. As a child, he was a very smart, and he didn’t let his ‘low rank in society” affect his life. During his attendance at college, he took a job as a teacher. Lyndon Johnson started teaching at a segregated Mexican- American school. A segregated school was a school filled with one race, or can be seen as a racial isolation. In Cotulla, Texas, he taught Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh grade. After his career in teaching, in 1931, he decided to take a leap of faith, and he worked in Washington D.C, where he became a congressional aide. Six years later Lyndon B. Johnson won the Texas seat in the U.S House Of Representatives, and he held that position for about 11 years...His life in politics would soon change. When World War II started, he immediately enlisted in the United States Navy, as a lieutenant commander, he served in the South Pacific, until he was recalled back to Washington by the current President Roosevelt. Later in 1960 Lyndon B. Johnson strived to be president, but he lost to John F. Kennedy. With Texas’ electoral votes in mind, John F. Kennedy chose Lyndon B. Johnson as his “running mate” (Background Essay 405). Three years into President Kennedy’s presidency, he was assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson soon got what he wanted. After John. F. Kennedy’s assassination, he became president. Though, when John. F. Kennedy died a very important bill was having a tough

Interesting post once again. I particularly was enticed by your words’ “ … he succeeded in changing laws, he failed to change attitudes in America…” One law or even a Supreme Court ruling cannot change attitudes. In particular, the Great Society was riddled with fraud, waste and corruption (Hamby 1992, 261). President Johnson was not the one to change attitudes anyway. Johnsons’ persona and the overreach of liberalism might have dome more harm to liberalism than good.

The Great Society was not a misguided and ill conceived but rather an attempt to help the economic situation of the time. There were struggle for black equality, housing discrimination, job discrimination, poverty and President Lyndon B. Johnson had to look at how to help improve American lives and the economy. The Great Society programs were launched in the 1964-65 to eliminate poverty and racial injustice. As a result, the number of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2% to 12.6% between 1963-1970 (source). This dramatic reduction in poverty was the combination of the different acts passed by the Congress to change the role of the federal government to benefit the lives of millions of Americans. The two major acts passed

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.

In May of 1964, Johnson explained that the Great Society was “a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their governments than the quality of their goods. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice.” The following year, liberal Democratic majorities passed eighty of eighty-three major legislative acts. By 1969, nearly all reforms of the Great Society became law. Johnson wanted to focus the legalization of the Great Society in three main areas of America where he felt that innovation and Government oversight to insure prosperity was needed the most, America’s cities, countryside, and

On 1964 Lyndon Baines Johnson delivered the speech, “The Great Society”. He traveled to Ann Arbor on May 22 to give his speech at the University of Michigan. Previously, Lyndon Johnson first mentioned “the great society” at the Ohio University. He stated, “ And with your courage and with your compassion and your desire, we will build a Great Society. It is a Society where no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled,”(Remarks in Athens at Ohio University line 51-52). However, it is at the University of Michigan where Lyndon B. Johnson elaborates and establishes the importance of “The Great Society” ,and where he delivered his famous speech. Lyndon Baines Johnson in The Great Society, creatively combines the unique use of