Great Society Program Analysis

Constitutions are ordinances set forth by a legislative body to establish the foundations of a government. The United States of America wrote their constitution to set the rules in place for the branches of government, their separate powers, and the limitations of the federal government. Since the United States operates under a federalist government, each state is responsible for establishing their own governments. There arise the states’ constitutions. There are inevitable differences between the content of a constitution of a state versus that of the federal government.

During Johnson’s presidency, the federal government significantly extended its domestic responsibilities in attempt to transform the nation to what Johnson called the “Great Society,” in which poverty and racial intolerance ceased to exist. A previously unsurpassed amount of legislation was passed during this time; numerous laws were passed to protect the environment, keep consumers safe, reduce unfairness in education, improve housing in urban areas, provide more assistance to the elderly with health care, and other policies to improve welfare. Johnson called for a “War on Poverty,” and directed more funds to help the poor; government spending towards the poor

The main purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to provide the basic rights of all citizens and provide direction how the government should work.The Constitution also provides the structure for law. and it has three branches; federal judiciary branch, legislative branch and executive branch.

Great Society: The Great Society was launched by the Democratic President Lyndon B Johnson in 1965 to 1965. Its purpose was to eliminate poverty and racial injustice, and expand educational opportunities in the United States.

The U.S. Constitution is the document of the principles and system of the United States government. It covers the goals of the new government, the system and purpose of each branch, how the states will work, how to amend the constitution, the supremacy of the national government, and the process of ratification. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of America, that must be followed by everyone. The Constitution of the United States was established at the 1787 Constitutional Convention and signed in 1787. The Constitution is the structure of America, it tells us how everything will work in this nation of ours. Without the Constitution, there would not be any specified rules of how this country is set up and how it works. The Constitution makes us who we are today, it establishes our system of government, our rules of what we can and can’t do, what the government can do for the people, and how everything in America is set up.

After the failure of the Articles of Confederation, early Americans were hesitant to create a new federal government and feared that it would become too powerful. To avoid this, the Founding Fathers created the Constitution of the United States of America. The new Constitution was based on several basic principles that limited the power of the federal government and kept it from gaining too much power. These systems helped set a base for the federal government while limiting the powers that it withheld. One of the main parts of the federal government are the three branches: Legislative, Executive and Judicial.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson set out to enact the “Great Society” program in order to expand upon and complete Roosevelt’s New Deal. This was a liberal program set up to ensure that the government staked more claim in aiding the citizens of the United States. This program touched on issues such as civil rights, education, and health care which were prevalent issues at the time, and that still have a major impact on society today. John Andrew lays out in detail in the book Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society these issues, as well as others. He gives each major topic a chapter, and goes into great detail of how he feels Johnson set out to change the American political and social structure.

The idea was that the government would represent the people. The Constitution established a two house Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Senate would include two members from each state and the House of Representatives would have members appointed according to the population of the state. Senators would be chosen by state legislatures while the Representatives would be elected by the people. This was the first step toward the expansion of democracy. The Constitution did not set any rules for qualifications to vote; they left that up to the states. The Constitution strengthened national authority. It gave the president the job of enforcing the law and commanding the military. It gave Congress the right to levy taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce, declare war, and foreign policy. The Constitution declared the national legislature as the "supreme Law of the Land." It did however leave the majority of day to day affairs up to the states such as education and law enforcement. It created a checks and balances system between the states and the national government. This was the idea to prevent any branch of the national government from dominating the other two.

The fundamental characteristics of a constitutional government contain of a written document which establishes the rules, rights, and principles of the government. These characteristics are the establishment of individual rights, federalism, higher law, separation of powers, and checks and balances. The establishment of all these rules, rights, and principles are all an

Once the American federal spending was focused on Vietnam, things started to go downhill. This shift of focus led to a lot of unhappiness in different parts of society. The main purpose of the Great Society was to benefit the American society and to beat the poverty epidemic plaguing America. A cartoon from the magazine Punch in 1967 titled “The Train Robbery” shows a train titled “U.S. Economy: and shows President Lyndon B. Johnson dismantling train cars titled “The Great Society”. Above the train, the word “Vietnam” is written in the cloud of smoke. The meaning of this cartoon is that President Johnson was taking money away from the Great Society in attempt to gather more money that was needed to pay for the war in Vietnam (Doc E). A graph from the United States Department of Commerce Census Bureau shows the percentage of persons below the poverty level by racial categories. The graph shows a steady decline from the years 1959 to 1974, however the figures for “all non-whites” as well as “blacks” remained three times higher than those for whites (Doc H). From 1965 through 1968, there was still unrest within urban society because African Americans were still demanding help, jobs, health care benefits and public transportation. Many domestic funds were left unsustained or began to diminish because of the large diversion of funds to the Vietnam War effort. Despite this, President Lyndon B. Johnson still wanted

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society was a set of social, political, and domestic programs put in place between 1964 and 1965, in response to the country’s quickly fading post-war prosperity. It strived to reduce social inequalities (especially racial discrimination) and boost the formerly thriving economy. The Great Society encompassed virtually all social policy sections, like civil rights, poverty and housing, education, health, welfare, arts and culture, transportation, environment, rural development, and labor. With such an ambitiously large program to follow, Johnson’s Great Society was bound to have a few flaws, and its success wasn’t guaranteed. It did, however, lead to several major social changes that revolutionized the United

It was already determined that the Articles of Confederation did not give enough power to the centralized government, but deciding the particulars of the new Constitution was a difficult task. In this new federal system there would be both national as well as state governments, but all authority would ultimately come from the people. The new Constitution gave broad powers to the national government, such as the power to tax, to print money, and to regulate commerce as well as to pass laws necessary to for fulfilling its other functions. This national government was to be the highest law of the land; however it also recognized the individual states and entrusted other important powers to

“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” ("Avalon Project - Constitution of the United States : Preamble," n.d.) The constitution divided government authority by giving the national government certain specific powers, and reserving all other powers to the states or the people. The constitution has preserved the basic design of federalism. The constitution grants three types of power to national government. Examples are expressed, implied, and inherent powers;

This investigation will analyze until what extent was Lyndon Johnson the Great Society a success or a failure. The Great Society was a set of domestic programs created by democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and 1965, the intention of The Great Society programs was to eliminate poverty and racial injustice. After John F. Kennedy's assassination, Johnson was left with the duty to finish Kennedy's job on creating a new frontier for americans. Issues addressed in The Great Society program were education, poverty, urban planning, medical care and transportation. Many of The Great Society proposals were similar to John F. Kennedy's “New Frontier” and were aimed to complete Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal agenda.

Great society was a reform program and an idealistic call promoted by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 for improved environmental, conservation, racial, educational, and health programs. Johnson wanted to build a better American by government 's help and funding. In 1965, Congress passed many Great Society measures, including Medicare, civil rights legislation, and federal aid to education. It represented government began to reform the society and started to play a more significant role in the country.