There are few individuals unaware of the disastrous foreign policies of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was these policies that were responsible for the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam, a conflict whose impact would help knock Johnson from office. However, Johnson felt he inherited the Vietnam War from the Kennedy Administration, and he much preferred focusing on domestic policies. The Great Society is the umbrella term used to describe the domestic programs established by the Johnson Administration. In his 1965 State of the Union speech, Johnson defined the Great Society, one in which federally funded programs would raise the quality of life for all Americans. This idea was closely linked to Johnson’s War on Poverty, begun in 1964. The Great Society was effective in many ways. The programs launched under this series of domestic policies included Medicare, federal funding for education and the arts, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was born. This analysis will focus on Johnson’s War on Poverty and why it failed to help produce the Great Society he so dearly envisioned.
Johnson’s Great Society was outlined in his 1965 State of the Union Speech, one in which he felt America’s problems could best be attacked via the urban centers, the countryside, and the classrooms. In this speech Johnson argues, “The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning” (Johnson 1). Johnson understood the dire economic conditions of many Americans, including poor white Appalachians and poor minority urban residents. Johnson created the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) as the agency responsible for running the War on Poverty.
Rebuilding poverty-stricken, minority urban areas, increasing employment, increasing training, bolstering education, creating n...