Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Great Society
Much like FDR's New Deal and Truman's Fair Deal, the Great Society was a series of domestic initiatives announced in the United States in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson at Ann Arbor, Michigan. A main focus of these social reforms to "end to poverty and racial injustice" was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The efforts also helped establish the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Other programs included:
- VISTA
- Job Corps
- Upward Bound
- Neighborhood Youth Corps
- Head Start
- an unconditional war on poverty
- Medicare/Medicaid
The Great Society was never fully funded because of the Vietnam War, which drained available resources. It was heavily critized by conservatives like Charles Murray who criticized it in his 1984 book Losing Ground as being ineffective and creating an underclass of lazy citizens. It was later partially overturned by President Ronald Reagan's first budget.
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