Topic 2 - C2 - Johnson's Great Society

Question 1

LBJ experienced poverty in his youth, what did he dream of for his great society?

Answer 1

• The end of poverty
• Racial equality
• Educational reform
• Modern housing
• The end of urban decay
• A renewed sense of community
• Environmentalism
• Peace with other nations

Question 2

What made people welcome LBJ’s optimism and what evidence is there of this?

Answer 2

• JFK’s assassination

- 75% approval rating in polls

Question 3

How did LBJ get the CRA passed in 1964?

Answer 3

CR bill was stuck in Congress at JFK’s death so LBJ insisted that the best way to honour JFK’s memory to pass it.

Question 4

What were the open housing laws of 1968?

Answer 4

1968 FHA prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing but was difficult to enforce. LBJ supported integrated housing - argued that imprisoning the Negro in the slums was immoral and exacerbated racial tensions.

Question 5

How did people react to the 1968 Fair Housing Act?

Answer 5

Whites opposed integrated housing and LBJ received worst hate mail. Congress repeatedly rejected legislation until assassination of MLK.

Question 6

What were LBJ’s biggest achievements regarding CR?

Answer 6

CRA and VRA transformed black American lives in the South. Uses executive orders to help black Americans e.g executive order 1965 required any institution receiving federal funding to employ more non whites - accelerated affirmative action.

Question 7

What did LBJ aim to achieve regarding poverty?

Answer 7

Jan 1964, declared an unconditional war on poverty. A group of University of Michigan social welfare experts predicted in 1962 that it would be relatively easy to end poverty with a $2 billion annual budget

Question 8

What did the Economic Opportunity Act 1964 (EOA) which established Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to coordinate War on Poverty do by 1965?

Answer 8

• 45 states had antipov programmes
• 53 job corps centres providing job training
• 25,000 families on welfare were receiving work training
• 35,000 were learning to read and write
• 90,000 adults were enrolled in basic education programmes

Question 9

How many people were recieving Aid to Families with Dependent Children by 1965?

Answer 9

4 million

Question 10

What did the Neighbourhood Youth Corps do in 35,000 in 49 cities and 11 communities 1965?

Answer 10

Gave young people jobs to help them stay in education
- 35,000 college students were on work/study programmes where poor children could earn federal funding through part time work

Question 11

What did VISTA do in 1965?

Answer 11

8000 volunteers in service to America (VISTA) were assisting needy children, Native Americans and migrant workers

Question 12

How did LBJ help small businesses by 1965?

Answer 12

Loans were being given for small businesses and rural development - e.g $17 million distributed in rural loans in 1968

Question 13

What did upward bound do?

Answer 13

Linked higher education institutions to poorer students with college potential. 50,000 disadvantaged students participated each year during LBJs term

Question 14

What did head start do?

Answer 14

Designed to enable preschool children to catch up with other children before beginning school. Nearly 1 million disadvantaged children enrolled in the programme

Question 15

How did LBJ extend programmes of JFK?

Answer 15

Extended JFK’s food stamp programme - Food Stamp Act 1964. 35% rise in minimum wage.

Question 16

What impact did LBJ’s poverty programmes have?

Answer 16

• Poverty fell from 17% in 1965 to 11% in 1972

- Federal expenditure on the poor had increased from $13 billion in 1963 to $20 billion in 1966.

Question 17

What were the criticisms of the war on poverty?

Answer 17

• GS cost more to put poor people into the Job Corps than into Harvard
• Liberals compained it was underfunded
• Failed to eradicate poverty - e.g ⅓ non white families still lived in poverty line, non white infant mortality rates were nearly twice as high as that of whites.

Question 18

What problems did LBJ highlight in education?

Answer 18

• 54 million US had never finished high school
• 8 million had under 5 years of schooling
• 100,000 high school graduates with proven ability could not afford college
• Schools were overcrowded and run down and there was a shortage of good teachers

Question 19

How did LBJ persuade congress to double expenditure on education to $8 billion?

Answer 19

LBJ emphasised that they spent 7 times more on a youth that has gone bad than on education.

Question 20

What was the major criticism of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 1965?

Answer 20

Study in 1985 suggested that half of those who received the money were above the poverty line but 6.7 million poor children did benefit.

Question 21

The Higher Education Act (HEA) 1965 - aimed to help poorer students and 11 million of them benefited from the $650 million it provided. By 1970…

Answer 21

• 25% of college students received some financial aid from HEA, helping the number of students rise from 15% of 18 to 22 year olds in 1950 to 34% in 1970 and 52% in 1990

Question 22

What did the Department of Housing and Urban Development do in 1965?

Answer 22

HUD combatted housing shortages in the urban areas where ⅔ of US lived

Question 23

What did the Demonstration Cities (1966) Act do?

Answer 23

Underfunded, only invest $1.2 billion - suggested that it should have costed $6 billion - designed to be model cities - cheap housing, good transportation and recreational facilities

Question 24

What was the Omnibus Housing Act (1965)?

Answer 24

Financed rent supplements and $8 billion worth of low and moderate income housing in ghettos - encouraged builders to construct reasonably priced housing but ghettos remained dire and white taxpayers remained unwilling to help

Question 25

What is the significance of LBJ’s housing and urban renewal programmes?

Answer 25

• ⅘ of Detroit ghetto rioters arrested in 1967 had jobs paying over $120 weekly implying that housing was their problem rather than poverty
• Taxpayers didn’t want to fund large scale improvements and opposed integrated housing
• Minority housing problems too great for one president to solve

Question 26

What was the need for Medicare and Medicaid 1965?

Answer 26

Elderly constituted a large proportion of US’s poor and healthcare bills was a major cause of poverty. 4 successive congresses refused to help the over 65s who had no private health insurance

Question 27

Why was there opposition to Medicare and Medicaid?

Answer 27

Conservatives thought state funded or subsidised healthcare was a form of communism.

Question 28

What did Medicare do?

Answer 28

Federally funded health insurance for over 65s and those with disabilities regardless of their income or existing medical conditions. 1966 - 19 million US enrolled in Medicare

Question 29

What did Medicaid do?

Answer 29

Financial assistance to states to help them provide medical assistance to residents who could not afford essential medical services. Increased the amount spent by the state in healthcare for poorer citizens from $1.3 billion to over $2 billion

Question 30

Where were there gaps in coverage of the GS?

Answer 30

Glasses, proved more expensive than LBJ anticipated. Allowed doctors and hospitals to set the fees = total medicare costs $3.5 billion in 1966 to $144 billion in 1993.

Question 31

How did spending on the GS increase?

Answer 31

1965 - 5% of GNP was spent on healthcare → 15% by 1990. Only benefitted ⅕ of population.

Question 32

What causes the GS not to achieve as much as it could?

Answer 32

Vietnam war took precedence over GS. 1965-1973 $15.5 billion spent on GS vs $120 billion on Vietnam. War on poverty became a casualty of Vietnam.

Question 33

What was the main achievement of LBJ?

Answer 33

Healthcare revolution. Helped lift millions of elderly Americans out of poverty and within a decade became so popular that no president dared to oppose it as it would alienate the ‘grey vote’