The Great Society and its Missing Premise

"Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society."

Lyndon Johnson, 1964

America came out of World War II with an economy on fire.  As the momentum started to fade Kennedy enacted a tax cut on the top marginal rate before his death in '63 which sent the GDP up over 10% in '64.  Johnson rode the wave of momentum and recreated his own version of Roosevelt's New Deal with a vision of ending poverty in the United States and he called it the Great Society.

Out of this vision came such programs as medicare, medicaid and food stamps.  He focused the spending on urban areas due to his belief that in 50 years 80% of Americas population would be centered in large cities.  He felt the people in these areas should have some control over the spending they were receiving so we saw the creation of Community Action Agencies.  There was a focus on education programs so we saw the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 which gave money to school systems to help them teach young children who could not speak English.

Other programs we have today that were created under this umbrella include, Public Broadcasting Service, Department of Transportation and the National Endowment of the Arts.

This was the beginning of the form of American liberalism that we see today.  A run away spending spree designed to create a utopia centered in the middle of the most prosperous nation on earth.  A perfect society where every man woman and child is born into a community of comfort and complete balance.  Every city was clean, well built and organized.  Every person was educated, cultured and informed.

There is nothing wrong with this idea.  The unfortunate missing piece of this plan is that it is based on the premise that every American strives to create their own wealth and prosperity and this Great Society's safety net is there to push them on their way or temporarily catch them when they fall.  These programs have come to be relied upon as a never ending source of income to our poor.  Too many of them no longer wish to work for something more than what they are given.  The desire to achieve has been removed from the section of the American economic spectrum that needs it the most.

Johnson stated later in his speech; ""The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty....The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive program in Washington, nor can it rely solely on the strained resources of local authority....We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society."

People stopped listening once they heard "end to poverty".  Politicians figured out that creating a welfare state of takers gave them tremendous political support and almost assured them of re-election.  This was a powerful concoction of political power wrapped in goodwill that had the face of a great idea.  The result is that today over 51% of American Citizens pay no federal income tax. We have become a nation of predominantly takers.

Our two party system gives the country a tremendous benefit of political check and balance.  The rampant spending created in the Johnson administration created the need for a conservative voice to take over Washington and pull back the reins.  This responsibility fell to Nixon in 1968.  A failed politician who could not be elected governor in 1962.  Suddenly he found himself President of a country embroiled in an unwinnable war in Vietnam and failed to focus adequately on the much more dire domestic economic condition.  Then ran head first into the Watergate scandal.  Johnson's Great Society of spending was left to fester.

Democrats who started to see the huge rising costs related to these programs had to act fast to give themselves political cover.  Our largest budget deficit before Johnson was $12 billion during the height of World War II.  In 1965, the year Johnson and Congress laid out the groundwork for his plan the federal budget deficit was $1.4 billion.  By 1968, when his plans were in full force across the country, the deficit swelled to $25 billion per year.  Twice the deficit of our most expensive year in a World War.  By 1974, the federal budget was out of control.  The democrats used the political control they had gained in Washington due to the Watergate scandal and put in place their cover story.  Baseline Budgeting.   The next year our federal deficit blew up to $53 billion.

The greatness of our society is the massive economic engine that creates, teaches and inspires ideas for future generations.  The only thing built out of spending programs is poverty.  Which, ironically, is the one thing the plan was originally created to abolish.

Leadership

Leadership

"It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgement to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president...The republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."


What does a leader do? A leader is many things. They have the ability to get others to work towards a common goal. But it doesn't stop there. If the goal to be obtained is generally accepted and desired by everyone then it doesn't take a leader to get them to the desired conclusion. It only takes an organizer. A leader takes a people that are not in agreement and gets them to work together towards a unified purpose. Leading is hard. It is a special quality that is truly only embodied in a few.

The problems that are facing America today are not systemic failures of a broken system. These problems are curable symptoms of a system that is gasping for true leadership. The economic engine of our country is stalling. For too long the electorate has blindly followed politicians with pocketfuls of promises and over hyped super egos that are continually fed by a media that is not just content on controlling what cereal we eat and what store we buy our clothes from. They now want to control our choices in elected officials. And make no mistake, they are very good at it.

The decision on how we proceed from this very important point in our countries history is in our hands, individually. We have to reach deep down into ourselves and overcome the fear that has been sold to us. We must realize that fear is nothing more than a controlling mechanism used by those who want us to make a decision that is not based in actual thought but rather emotion. Gold sellers preach the end of the worlds monetary systems to get you to buy into gold as an alternate currency, politicians tell senior citizens that social security checks may not come to garner favor on an unpopular position and media sells you on the idea that your vote really doesn't count as the electorate is too large for any one person to matter.  We must realize that we do have the power in each of us to set things right again and get our great country back on the path to independence and prosperity.

It starts with me.  Leadership must start internally.  The antidote to fear is knowledge.  Each of us has the ability to become informed.  Throw off the party line blinders that we have chosen to use for so long to continually cater to our general laziness.  Invest the time to research what the actual problems are and what solutions are being offered by various candidates.  I promise that you will be surprised at how clear it becomes once you step past the news headlines.   


As each of us takes up our own responsibilities of citizenship and begin to open our eyes to the truths all around us, the strength of our countries design will begin to emerge from the ashes of a failed organizer masquerading as a leader.