Lyndon B Johnson

            Lyndon B Johnson was an average president. An average president does enough harm to the country to offset the good things he did, which was the case of President Johnson. Despite doing some good things for the country, President Johnson’s poor decisions on some policies offset the good things he did during his presidency. The issues that President Johnson dealt with were The Great Society, Civil Rights Relations, the Vietnam War, and Civil Rights relations.

            The first issue President Johnson dealt with was the Great Society, which is a domestic issue. The Great Society was Johnson’s ambitious domestic agenda. The biggest parts of this plan include bringing aid to underprivileged Americans, regulating natural resources, and protecting American consumers. Other parts of the program include environmental protection laws, landmark land conservation measures, the Immigration Act, bills establishing a New Endowment for the Arts and the New Endowment for the Humanities, a Highway Safety Act, the Public Broadcasting Act, and a bill to provide consumers with some protection against shoddy goods and dangerous products. The Great Society also included an effort to fight poverty, which was made a national concern by declaring a “War on Poverty”. Lyndon signed a series of bills and acts in order to start programs such as Head Start, food stamps, work study, Medicare, and Medicaide. In creating these porgrams, poverty rates dropped from 20% to 12% and stayed there. Public health made a turn for the better under Johnson, poverty levels were reduced, and living standards were better as a result of the Great Society. The country as  a whole improved during The Great Society, which makes Presiden Johnson an excellent president.

            A second issue President Johnson delt with was Civil Rights/Race Relations, which was a domestic issue. The Civil Rights problem was when there was segregation between races. African Americans and Whites could not utilize the same areas. President Johnson took action by convincing key to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended the segregation of public facilities. The African Americans in the country at the time were also discriminated against and many were iliterate. To help out these people, President Johnson passed the Voting Rights Acto of 1965, which suspended literacy tests in areas where voting rates were under a certain percentage. These two acts passed by President Johnson ended discrimination in the South and gave African Americans the right to vote. The way President Johnson handled this event made him a poor president. He concentrated so much on helping an underprivilaged minority that he didn’t think of how the rest of the country would react. The rest of the country was the split on the issue. Some people didn’t want to see their tax money go to people who are too lazy to get an education and a job. Others thought that this would help stimulate the economy and help raise the value of the US dollar.