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How successful were Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ reforms?
During his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson passed an overwhelming volume of legislation - 135 acts over 6 years to be exact. These acts were passed with Johnson’s usual mantra of “Do it now. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Not later today. Now”, and with his usual zeal towards improving things. He had big plans for the country, and his “Great Society” reform was aimed at levelling the playing field for everyone: improving college opportunities, getting more black people voting and getting more seniors involved in Medicaid were just a few of his goals. This essay, structure in X paragraphs will explore the acts passed with regard to his “Great Society” reform and explore to what extent the acts were successful as well as their long term legacy, and will seek to prove that although Johnson’s legislation was well-meaning, it was for the most part ineffective, and sometimes even detrimental to the goals he had set himself, and set America.
His policies in terms of the arts, media and culture were by far Johnson’s clearest legislative success. His motivation for the “Great Society” was to create a self-aware society, which would recognise and attempt to solve the problems that it found in its midst independently. For this to happen, he realised that on top of the emphasis on sciences and arts in school, there needed to be a creative outlet which would give a creative edge to the population. Johnson, as an uneducated Texan, viewed education very favourably, as a way to free the population, and therefore found it necessary to create an educated and flexible workforce, investing in society from the bottom up, providing money for only for scientific research but also artistic endeavours: his is legislation in terms of art and culture therefore focused on supporting projects which would fund the display of “artistic excellence”, such as the National Endowment for the Art (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). These foundations had goals to: “give full value and support to the other great branches of scholarly and cultural activity in order to achieve a better understanding of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a better view of the future.”  These projects were so successful that Johnson continued to dramatically increase the funding for them up to approximately $2 billion. This emphasis on culture has led to about 850 million yearly visits to museums in America, which contribute $21 billion to the American economy every year : in this way, Johnson was able to see the long-term benefits of investing in American society’s culture, and America is still reaping the profits to this day.
Regarding legislation towards improving education, Johnson was particularly successful at initiating solutions and levelling the playing field, as he did with his desegregation bills and programs such as the Head Start act. In terms of desegregation, his biggest action was obviously the “Civil Rights Act” of 1964, which amongst many other things ended racial segregation in schools. Although it can be argued that this legislation only outlawed de jure discrimination, and not de facto discrimination, it was nonetheless the most sweeping civil rights legislation passed during that period, and highly effective in terms of decreasing African American dropout rates, which dropped from 20.5% in 1976 to 13.0% in 1996 , increasing graduation rates, which went from 66.2% in 1990 to 74.9% in 1997 , as well as many more factors, which displays a clear and immediate success in the policies. In terms of reducing the impact of poverty on education, his two most notable actions were the Head Start program and the “Elementary and Secondary Education Act”. The Head Start program initially just provided summer school learning, which has since evolved into adding health, nutrition and parent-involvement services to low-income families, and is one of the longest-running programs in terms of addressing the effects of poverty in the United States, whose longevity is testament to its utility. Although studies have so far failed to provide a comprehensive consensus about whether or not Head Start is truly useful, it is important to note that according to the American Economic Association study labelled “Longer-Term Effects of Head Start”, participants were significantly more likely to complete high school and attend college , and a HSIS (Health Supplements Information Service) study showed that “Head Start has benefits for both 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in the cognitive, health, and parenting domains, and for 3-year-olds in the social-emotional domain” . The “Elementary and Secondary Education Act”, meanwhile, is described as the “most far-reaching federal legislation affecting education ever passed by Congress” , and involved funding for primary and secondary school education, as well as holding the federal government responsible for fair and equal education nation-wide.  
In terms of housing and development, although urban racial dissociation was not something that Johnson could fix in the short term, he was nonetheless able to address federal responsibility for the long term. The main problem that Johnson sought to address was the racial divide in housing: black people lived rurally due to the discrimination in the estate agencies, which also impacted their ability to get jobs and support their families. In order to begin resolving these problems, Johnson implemented one act in particular: the “Omnibus Housing Act”, which was a $7.5 billion measure which gave rent subsidies and created grants for low-income families, as well as helping small businesses to rehabilitate urban property. This was a success as it raised the minimum living standard around America, and raised house ownership to 64% in 1980. Johnson also passed the “Fair Housing Act” in 1968, which protected the potential buyer or renter from discrimination from the landlord, which led to a 72% increase in housing loans for black people by 1999, 46% of whom were homeowners by the time, compared to the 20% at the end of the WW2. This shows a clear improvement in African American treatment by the housing market. The same progress can be seen in urban development: the implementation of community action programs led to a fight against poverty at its roots, which decreased the number of black-exclusionary areas and led to the number of black people in urban areas to grow from 6.3 million to 15 million, which adds to Johnson’s success in terms of this policy as it meant that more black people were able to have access to higher-paying jobs, afford a more luxurious life-style, as well as send their children to better schools  (as this was, and still is determined by school districts). In order to increase the majority of these benefits, a transportation scheme ran alongside the urban development programs: some of the acts passed in its name include the “High Speed Ground Transportation Act” of 1965, which enabled people to get around cities faster and more efficiently, therefore connecting them not only to jobs, but also to friends and family. Overall, these series of actions were successful as they all had measurable impact on the racial divide, although the same criticism of not having totally tackled and gotten rid of urban dislocation can be cited as an example of the contrary.
Johnson’s acts towards preserving the environment were broadly successful, although he failed to tackle the underlying problem of big corporations’ lobbies, and his actions for animal rights were not as successful. He was the US president with the strongest track record in terms of environmental legislation, signing “more than 300 conservation measures into law” , the first of which was the “Clean Air Act” of 1963, which created an ongoing research and regulatory program which not only looks for solutions, but also looking for ways to prevent pollution, an effort which continues to this day. Another notable act which he passed was the “Wilderness Protection Act”, which saved 9.1 million acres of forestland from industrial development. His efforts for animal protection were equally well-meaning, although dramatically less performing: his “Endangered Species Preservation Act” of 1966 had a success rate of 1% over 3 decades, and it’s very strict regulations encouraged the formation of an exotic animal black market, which was obviously detrimental to Johnson’s goals in the matter. His “Animal Welfare Act” also met difficulties with enforcement, as the wrong-doers had to be reported before they could be investigated and charged. On top of these problems, Johnson faced many difficulties with signing the acts, especially those with environmental concerns such as reducing pollution, into law: powerful companies with vested would use lobbies in order to press Johnson and congress about the laws and acts that were to be implemented , which slowed down the process. Johnson found additional difficulties with the enforcement of the laws once they had passed: as aforementioned, animal welfare abusers had to be reported before the matter could be investigated, big companies would put up a great deal of resistance before conceding to the laws, thus making the more sweeping laws less effective than desired.
Unlike with Johnson’s environmental legislation, his legislation for consumer’s rights tackled lobbies efficiently and successfully, although worker’s rights are a more contentious issue to discuss. For example, the “Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act” of 1965 demanded that cigarettes carried health warnings, at a time when the knowledge that they were harmful was only recently coming into public light: the detail rapport by the US Surgeon General was only released the previous year . The tobacco industry was fighting against these measures with aggressive lobbying on Capitol Hill, but they were overturned by Johnson’s measures, without discussion. Johnson also tackled car safety in the “National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act” of 1966, which was strongly contested by companies such as General Motors, but which was signed to law successfully nonetheless, and forms the basis of much car security today. It can also be considered a success as, alongside the “Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act” sent a clear message to large corporations that these movements towards a healthier and safer world couldn’t be stopped, as well as the obvious strengthening of consumer rights. Compared to this, Johnson’s work on worker’s rights was very disappointing: the Worker’s Union membership at the time was at 23.5% and only declined, which suggests that he did not do a very good job in protecting workers. Some of the programs that he set up in order to control and manage unemployment were seen as ineffective as they increased resentment in the people going through them, who felt that they had to jump through hoops to get benefits because they weren’t able to get ahead in the job market, as well as setting the bar too high. Johnson also suffered of the de jure/ de facto conflict with his benefit programs, which cut down the American Dream by subsiding people’s wishes to stay at home instead of going out and searching for work.  
In terms of health and welfare policies, it is possible to argue that they were an unequivocal failure, as his over-hasty actions led to a downwards spiral of inflation and social discontent, which is still prevalent today. Although people point to examples such as Medicare and Medicaid, which persist today, as symbols of Johnson’s legislative success, the reality was that these programs were detrimental to Johnson’s plan of unifying healthcare for all. Firstly, the premise of Medicaid is that taxes are raised in order for the whole nation to pay a little for those cannot afford to, while the premise of Medicare is to deal with the high medical costs of elderly people, relative to the rest of the population . Although this was a good idea, the reality was harder to execute: “poor” had different definitions in different states, which led to 60% of Americans below the poverty line being ineligible for Medicaid, despite being the demographic for which the program was aimed. Johnson’s medical programs were also much more expensive than the public had been led to believe: Wilbur Mills says: “We were told by Bob [Myers], the actuary, that the cost of Medicaid over Kerr-Mills in the first year would be $250 million, nationwide. It was $250 million in New York State alone” , and the program ended up using up so much of the budget that “other social programs were starved for funds” . Johnson’s over-haste in putting the health and welfare programs to action led to another problem for America: inflation . As hospitals with higher costs were backed more by federal budget, hospitals would increase their costs to be paid more, thus meaning that they could sell their products at a higher rate. The overall effect of Johnson’s pouring money into the situation was that the cost of Medicaid increased as higher taxes, thus driving the economy into a downwards spiral, which is still a problem and source of contention for politicians today. Had Johnson managed expectations for the program and attempted to utilize his resources in a better planned manner, his legislation may have been more successful.
Finally, it is possible to attribute the largest failure of Johnson’s “Great Society” reform to the war on poverty, which despite its good intentions was an unmitigated disaster, which repercussions continue to divide politicians to this day. The “War on Poverty” was the centrepiece of Johnson’s reforms, and in a sense the factor which ties all of his projects together. It was out of his efforts against the War on Poverty that Medicaid and Medicare spawned, as well as Job Corp, community action programs and the creation of an Office of Economic Opportunity in order to tackle the whole anti-poverty campaign, which is part of the reason for which the War on Poverty can be branded a failure. Although some of his programs are still running, their efficacy is seriously doubted , including by Reagan: “Johnson declared a war on poverty. Poverty won.” The benefits that Johnson so generously gave out arguably encouraged people to stay home and not work: the welfare rolls in New York City (although this was not an isolated incident) tripled between 1964 and 1969 as incentive to find work evaporated, replaced by an ability to depend on the government to provide. Johnson was also criticised for his seeming inability to commit fully to his social schemes: Martin Luther King, in particular said: “you may not know it, my friends, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor”, emphasising the difference between what Johnson was saying and what was happening in America. Overall, Johnson’s war on poverty can be regarded as a failure in terms of his “Great Society” reform as not only were none of his goals met, but his actions in raising expectations of what would happen while simultaneously participating in a war which detracted totally from his goals in America all led to the ultimate failure of his noble fight.
In conclusion, a good summary of Johnson’s domestic reform would be “well-intentioned, but ineffective”. Although his efforts concerning the arts were very successful, and he had numerous well-placed successes throughout his policies: the “Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act”, the “Clean Air Act”, for example, the most important pieces of legislation in terms of Health and Welfare and War on Poverty were ultimately failures which reflected badly on the rest of his legislation, and of course, overshadowing all of his domestic policies was the War on Vietnam, which ruined his reputation as an America president forever. Many questions were raised by this study: namely whether Johnson would have done better had Vietnam not been happening at the same time? As well as this, you can be led to question the ways in which we measure his “successes” and “failures” in terms of domestic policy. In certain areas, namely Education, it is very hard to get succinct data about whether or not, for example, the Head Start program was a success, as it all ultimately boils down to your personal subjectivity while analysing the data. In this sense, it is in reality very hard to give a concrete answer about whether or not Johnson was successful in his expansive, expensive policies. Despite all of this, credit must be given where credit is due: Johnson was the first, and perhaps the last president, to allow himself to dream of a world so much altered by legislation, and this sense of his legacy is perhaps the most durable.

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