New Deal:
Alphabet Soup
Great Society:
$2 billion for Office of Economic Opportunity, $1 billion to redevelop Appalachia.
2 new cabinet offices - Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development (Robert C. Weaver - 1st black in cabinet)
Big 4: aid to education, medical care for old and poor, immigration reform, new voting rights bill.
Education aid to students, not schools -> funds could go to religious schools too.
Medicare for elderly, Medicaid for poor (1965)
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 - abolished quota system from 1921. Doubled number of immigrants allowed annually (200k), set limits on W Hemisphere immigrants (120k). Allowed admission for close relatives of US citizens outside these limits. Latin Americans and Asians mostly started immigrating.
Poverty declined, especially in elderly.
LBJ speech - "we shall overcome." Voting Rights Act of 1965 - outlawed literacy tests and sent federal voter registrars to South.
Similarities:
- Killed by wars. New Deal ended w/ WWII, Great Society ended w/ Vietnam.
- New Deal started bc of Great Depression, Great Society started because of poverty
Differences:
- New Deal didn't focus on Civil Rights, while Great Society did
- Great Society worked (brought poverty rate down to 11%, really low). New Deal hardly did.
- Great Society focused on reform, while New Deal was mainly relief and recovery - temporary creation of jobs. The only New Deal permanent reform was Social Security, FDIC, TVA, and SEC.
