| The information
in this essay is from numerous students in our learning community
at Northern Kentucky University. My fellow class mates interviewed
family members and distributed the information to different groups to do
this web project. This information is not directly quoted from the
sources but instead interpreted by our peers and given to us.
The information that we gathered for this project was limited. Many families had negative opinions of Lyndon Johnson, few had positive opinions and others had no opinion. As Lyndon Johnson was hurried into the Presidential office, under such sad circumstances he was automatically being compared to John F. Kennedy as a domestic leader. Many people thought of the time of Kennedy's Presidency as Camelot and after his assassination they were disappointed when Johnson took office. Most people never gave Johnson a chance to prove himself and others did and were disappointed. Many people felt that Johnson made the Vietnam War worse than it already was. With Johnson having a popular President in office before him and the weight of the was on his shoulders the odds were against him.
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| Many families
had different opinions of Lyndon B. Johnson as a domestic leader.
Some people, like Rich Manning, sympathized with him at first because he
was "thrust" into office under tragic circumstances but today, he believes
that "Johnson was one of the crudest, most disgusting Presidents we've
even had." According to Ken and Vicki Eaton, parents of Kristin Eaton,
Johnson was looked at as a "hick from Texas" and knew that he would have
trouble because of how great John F. Kennedy was as a President.
But, Ken Eaton says, "being a hick wasn't a bad thing because I was a hick
too."
Other families had very strong feelings of dislike toward Johnson. Albert and Helena Nanni were still so intrigued by President Kennedy that they didn't like him at all. Maryann Huhn's grandparents had similar feelings, they didn't like him because they loved JFK so much. Some people, like Vicki Stieha's father, Saul Tave, recalls no impact by Johnson's Presidency. Saul Tave does recall that Johnson was charismatic on television and sounded like he was doing "good". The information above is just a small sample of the reactions toward LBJ, there are many people that feel differently toward him and many who liked him. In the information we gathered we could not find anyone who cared for Johnson completely. |
| In 1965 Lyndon Baines Johnson
presented his State of the Union speech which defined "The Great Society"
as federally sponsored programs that would improve the quality of American's
lives. Just a few of these programs to fight the War on Poverty included
Medicare and Medicaid.
Medicare is a guarantee that every American over the age of 65 will receive health care. According to the Census Bureau, in 1998, 12.7 percent of the population was 65 years of age or older, which means 12.7 percent of the population was eligible to receive basic hospital insurance and supplementary insurance for health care bills. Medicaid is operated by the state and is for low income families to cover doctors and others services. According to the Census Bureau, in 1998, 34.5 million people in America were not making enough money to be above poverty level and 16.3 percent of the people didn't have health insurance. People say that Social Security has been the most successful government program thus far. This program has been around in many forms since as early as the 1700s when the disabled veterans received pensions from fighting in the Revolutionary War. Social Security has come a long way since then; now, people of all ages can receive economic protection because of this program. Other government programs expanded by Johnson were education, environment and the job corps. Each one of the 60 programs created helped fight the War on Poverty in some way. The education provided for new and better equipped classrooms, minority scholarships and low interest student loans. The environment introduced ideas to gain back or clean air and water and the job corps provided jobs for young men and women who couldn't find work. Social Security |
| Many of the programs expanded by
Johnson were useful for some American families but others were told that
they were not eligible for them. We had quite a few families that
benefited from Social Security in some way. Cathrine Saunders's family
just recently received Social Security benefits because they would not
accept the government's handouts before.
People of all ages can benefit from Social Security, Mike Williams' grandmother receives SS and every month he gets an allowance from her. Medical problems and old age are two main reasons for receiving SS. James Proctor's grandma, Irene, receives SS because of a back injury while working at a tile factory earlier in life. Kevin Morath's grandfather retired early because of a bad heart and cataracts and received SS checks in the mail. Some families didn't benefit from any type of government program. Leslie Smarr's family didn't benefit from the programs but her parents hope to benefit from Social Security someday. Neither side of Kristin Eaton's family, the Heringhaus' or the Eatons' have benefited from any type of programs and neither did Maryann Huhn's family. Some people benefit from multiple programs at any one time. Courtney Pflem's grandmother, Gayle Beckman has benefited from Medicare since she is older and SS has helped her live because when she was in the work force there weren't any retirement programs for her. Both of Mike Williams' grandparents benefit from medicare and SS. His grandpa likes medicare because it pays for all of his medical expenses. |
| LBJ had a vision, when he took office, to continue with JFK's agenda in spite of all the pressure that LBJ was under he expanded all the government programs and started some new programs trying to rid the world of the horrid poverty that is in the news every day. Some benefited and others didn't but the people who did benefit are thankful and the people who didn't, some are hostile and the others could care less. This essay could be longer and have more information but we would never find a median in the attitude of LBJ's presidency. But, looking through the information I found one way to sum this all up. In a conversation about Lyndon B. Johnson Welfare, Medicare and Medicaid, Professor Stieha's father, Saul Tave said, "I think they could have skipped over all the baloney and focused on education -- at all levels. With the proper education, the rest of the things may have been unnecessary. Keep people able and willing to be productive and you don't need social programs." This comment, we feel is completely true. Education is the key to success and our future. |