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President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed a utopian new imaginative and prescient for america below a vastly expanded federal authorities, which he dubbed the Nice Society, on this present day in historical past, Jan. 4, 1965.
“We search to ascertain a concord between man and society, which can enable every of us to enlarge the which means of his life and all of us to raise the standard of our civilization. That is the search that we start tonight,” the president declared to the nation in his State of the Union tackle.
It was the primary televised State of the Union, delivered in primetime on to the American folks, not simply to each chambers of Congress because the Structure requires.
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“The Nice Society asks not how a lot, however how good; not solely methods to create wealth however methods to use it; not solely how briskly we’re going, however the place we’re headed,” the president added, whereas imploring all Individuals to motion.
The Nice Society “is not going to be the reward of presidency or the creation of presidents,” he additionally mentioned.
Johnson’s imaginative and prescient provided a serving to hand to Individuals most in want, proponents of the Nice Society have argued over time.
His imaginative and prescient failed dramatically by any empirical measure and succeeded solely in increasing the dimensions and inefficiency of the federal paperwork and in institutionalizing generational poverty, its critics have famous.
Johnson assumed the Oval Workplace following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.
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LBJ was elected to the workplace a 12 months later, soundly defeating Arizona Republican Barry Goldwater (486 to 52 votes within the Electoral Faculty), simply 9 weeks earlier than the State of the Union.
“The Nice Society is not going to be the reward of presidency. It would require of each American … to make the journey.” — President Lyndon B. Johnson
He used his overwhelming victory as a mandate within the State of the Union to defend the necessity for enhanced U.S. involvement within the Vietnam Warfare and to suggest the federal authorities as a solution to an enormous array of human ills and societal issues.
“We’re [in Vietnam] first,” he mentioned, “as a result of a pleasant nation has requested us for assist in opposition to the communist aggression… To disregard aggression now would solely enhance the hazard of a a lot bigger conflict,” he added.
He then issued 9 direct proposals, the inspiration of the Nice Society, to sort out every thing from training and crime to the surroundings and concrete renewal.
His challenges included extra obtuse targets, too.
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“I suggest that we make an all-out marketing campaign in opposition to waste and inefficiency,” Johnson mentioned in saying his federal authorities want listing.
Johnson launched the time period “Nice Society” on the marketing campaign path in 1964, a phrase coined by speechwriter Richard N. Goodwin.
His 1965 State of the Union was adopted by an intense flurry of legislative exercise from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who have been within the midst of a 26-year interval of controlling each chambers of Congress (1955-81).
“The 1965 State of the Union tackle heralded the creation of Medicare/Medicaid, Head Begin, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Division of Housing and City Improvement and the White Home Convention on Pure Magnificence,” writes Historical past.com.
“Johnson additionally signed the Nationwide Basis of the Arts and Humanities Act, out of which emerged the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts and the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities.”
“The Warfare on Poverty was destined to be one of many nice failures of Twentieth-century liberalism.” — Allen J. Matusow, historian
The Nice Society was, at its core, an effort to assault poverty in America and the challenges to training, well being and alternative that include it.
Johnson had launched the “conflict on poverty” in his State of the Union a 12 months earlier.
On this central purpose — to cut back and even get rid of poverty — the Nice Society has been a boondoggle by any empirical measure.
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“The Warfare on Poverty was destined to be one of many nice failures of 20-century liberalism,” mentioned historian and Rice College professor Allen J. Matusow, in response to the Basis for Financial Freedom.
“Those that most straight benefited,” he continued, “have been the middle-class medical doctors, academics, social employees, builders and bankers who supplied federally backed items and companies of typically suspect worth.”
The muse added, citing poverty researcher Michael D. Tanner of the Cato Institute: “Throwing cash on the drawback has neither diminished poverty nor made the poor self-sufficient. As a substitute, authorities packages have torn on the social material of the nation and been a big consider rising out-of-wedlock births with all of their attendant issues.”
“Throwing cash on the drawback has neither diminished poverty nor made the poor self-sufficient.” — Michael D. Tanner, Cato Institute
It continued, “Most tragically of all, the pathologies they engender have been handed on from mother or father to youngster, from technology to technology.”
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The standard of public training in America, in the meantime, has declined throughout all demographics and sectors of society for the reason that Nineteen Sixties, whereas the hole between the tutorial achievement of Black and White kids is larger than ever, in response to quite a few academic research.
The Nice Society has succeeded in turning the federal authorities into an insatiable leviathan.
The federal funds ballooned from $118.2 billion, when Johnson got here to workplace in 1963, to $195.6 billion when he left in 1969, in response to the American Presidency Undertaking at College of California Santa Barbara. That is a rise of 65.5%.
The federal funds final 12 months was $6 trillion with a $1.8 trillion deficit, in response to the identical report.
“The hopes and guarantees articulated by Johnson have been grandiose, and inevitably raised expectations (bringing an finish to poverty and racism for instance) that no president might realistically hope to realize,” George Washington College historian and professor of political administration Matthew Dallek wrote in 2015.
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“Although lots of Johnson’s packages stay in place in the present day,” writes Historical past.com, “his legacy of a Nice Society has been largely overshadowed by his choice to contain better numbers of American troopers within the controversial Vietnam Warfare.”
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