The Johnson and Reagan Administrations

This research paper describes and contrasts the political ideologies and strategies and the economic and social policies of the presidencies of Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-1968) and Ronald Reagan (1980-1988). There were some parallels between their presidencies. Both men achieved their greatest legislative accomplishments during their early years in office. They each built successful political coalitions and won landslide mandates for a second term. Neither of them managed the economy well. The contrasts were even more striking. Johnson and Reagan pursued fundamentally different political strategies, economic and social policies because of the conditions they faced, their differing backgrounds, political and management styles and their opposing basic political philosophies and ideologies.

The conditions under which Johnson and Reagan took office differed markedly. By the time Johnson became President after John F. Kennedy's assassination, the New Deal coalition of the Solid South, labor, farmers and minorities was deteriorating. The Republicans had made substantial inroads in the South. JFK was narrowly elected in 1962, largely because he won the support of many Republicans and independents who were members of the expanding suburban and urban middle class (Goldman 16). Kennedy's legislative program had been stymied by conservative forces in the Congress. The post-war economic boom was continuing. It had

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y after decades of semirebellion" (Evans 493). Johnson's political strategy ultimately collapsed. He was forced into retirement because his escalation of the war in Vietnam, and the social divisions it generated. eroded public confidence in his policies. LBJ's complex personality, his tendency toward secretiveness and his "labyrinthine manueverings" as well as his outright deception of the public and the Congress of his war plans in Vietnam, led to a credibility gap and contributed to his downfall (Goldman 410). Siegel said that Johnson "was driven . . . by greed and by an unquenchable thirst for success and . . . by a genuine concern for the plight of those who shared his childhood poverty" (152). In contrast, Ronald Reagan was an ideologue as well as a pragmatic politician. Whereas Johnson had supreme "confidence in the capacity of government to improve all conditions of society" (Kearns 219), Reagan said in his inaugural address that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem" (Dallek 63). Dallek said that "no President in American history entered the White House more determined to reduce the role and size of government than Ronald Reagan" (63). He made "the first serious step in half a c
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Approximate Word count = 2088
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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