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Lyndon B. Johnson: The Not-So-Great Society
Lyndon B. Johnson created hundreds of social programs to "cure" poverty. But who would administer those programs? And how exactly would they work? No one seemed to know. No one seemed to care. The goal was noble, and that’s all that mattered. Renowned historian Amity Shlaes explains.
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Amity Shlaes“We are living in Lyndon Johnson’s America.”
That’s what a staffer of the 36th President once said. It’s still true today.
Consider America’s out-of-control federal debt. We’d like to reduce it. But we can’t. Because doing so means taking down institutions that seem as permanent as the Rockies.
Medicare.
Medicaid.
And many other entitlements.
All these institutions were established by Lyndon Johnson.
The slogan of John F. Kennedy, Johnson’s predecessor, was “A New Frontier.” By this, Kennedy meant more opportunity to enable Americans to thrive, not massive federal programs that would bankrupt our grandchildren.
Kennedy advocated significant tax cuts.
Even Kennedy’s signature project emphasized symbolism: get a man on the moon—to show the Soviet Union, and American citizens, what America can do for itself.
But an assassin’s bullet felled Kennedy in 1963.
And now it was Johnson’s turn.
Johnson didn’t have to set a new agenda: he could have simply completed what Kennedy had already set in motion.
And that’s what he did … at first. For example, he saw those Kennedy tax cuts into law.
But Johnson didn’t want to be a caretaker. He wanted to be a history-maker.
So, Johnson created a program called “The Great Society.” Not only would he outdo John Kennedy. He would outdo his own hero, Franklin Roosevelt.
At the University of Michigan in 1964, Johnson announced dramatic plans to change life “in our cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms.”
Later, Johnson promised to “cure” poverty. Note the verb: not “alleviate,” not “relieve,” but “cure.”
Johnson, with his long career as a congressman and a senator, was genuinely great at one thing: passing laws.
And pass them he did.
A Civil Rights law to banish inequality.
A voting rights law to end the voting gap between white and black Americans.
A law to provide health care for seniors—Medicare.
A law to provide health care for disadvantaged families—Medicaid.
And laws that built out modern entitlements such as Food stamps and public housing.
It all sounded great. The American people agreed.
After serving the remaining months of Kennedy’s term, Johnson easily won election in his own right in 1964. Then Johnson felt even freer to set his own course. Between 1965 and 1968 Johnson brought hundreds of social programs to life.
But who would manage these programs? And how would government employees do it? No one knew.
No matter. They could work out the details later.
What mattered most to Johnson were the noble intentions of these programs. But those intentions didn’t lead to Great Society heaven.
Riots in American cities did not stop after Johnson passed his civil rights and entitlement laws. Riots increased. Life in public housing projects got worse. The Great Society institutionalized incentives for young women to have children out of wedlock.
Still, these benefits came to look like mountain rocks: hard to cut. Johnson’s successor, Richard Nixon, a Republican, increased spending on Great Society projects faster than Johnson.
Down the decades we have spent billions and then trillions. Yet today we can see that the results of the Great Society were anything but great.
Crime and high taxes plagued the cities.
Poverty refused to be cured.
Entitlements didn’t free families: entitlements shackled families to poverty.
Student scores on standardized tests dropped after 1965. Even today the most progressive politicians would agree that public school systems in major cities are failing.
Medicare certainly feels kind to senior citizens. But it places a burden of debt on our grandchildren that is anything but kind.
People think of Franklin Roosevelt as the father of our nation’s social programs. But today we spend more on Great Society programs than on those of the New Deal.
These facts may surprise many Americans. We hear all the time that the Great Society was a great success. Perhaps that’s because romanticizing government intervention is a rule in public radio and television—both institutions made possible through a 1967 law signed by Johnson.
Today might be the moment to clear our heads.
And the moment to take the Great Society record seriously.
After all, these edifices are not the Rockies. Medicaid, Medicare, and our social programs can be changed. Our debt can be reduced.
Yes, we are living in Lyndon Johnson’s America. But that doesn’t mean we have to.
I’m Amity Shlaes, author of Great Society: A New History, for Prager University.
