Fifty years on, former President Lyndon Johnson received the tributes he earned. Four presidents praised his contribution. “I lived out the promise of LBJ’s efforts,” said President Obama, defending Medicare and food stamps, signature LBJ achievements. Bill Clinton praised LBJ for demonstrating “the power of the presidency to redeem the promise of America.”
The Great Society, the War on Poverty, Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act opened locked doors. But for decades, LBJ’s achievements have been slighted. Liberals scorned him because of the war in Vietnam. Conservatives loathed him because of the Civil Rights achievements. The War on Poverty, despite dramatically reducing poverty in America, was dismissed as a failure. New Democrats dismissed him for believing in big government.
But as the Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, recognized last week, Johnson was a giant, standing alongside Roosevelt and Lincoln as presidents who saved America. Under Johnson, the scourge of segregation was finally ended. Millions of the poor were provided a ladder up out of poverty and despair. Johnson’s reforms – Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Immigration, Medicare, child nutrition, food stamps and more – were nearly as great as those of FDR, and unmatched since.
Helped by allies like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Johnson had a legacy he could invoke; but his own leadership, passion, energy and skills were indispensable. President Obama invoked one of LBJ’s famed lines: “What the hell is the presidency for, if not to fight for causes you believe in?”
Acknowledging Johnson’s greatness in our rear-view mirror is important because it may help us in looking forward through the windshield.
America is more unequal than ever. Our schools are segregated by race and by class. We rank second to the lowest among industrial nations in the assistance we provide to the poor. The middle class is sinking; we suffer mass unemployment with newly-created jobs too often offering low pay and few hours. The millennial generation is graduating into the worst economic straits since the Great Depression.
Basic rights are under assault. State after state is passing measures that suppress voting — limiting voting days, ending Sunday voting, demanding voter ID, stripping the right to vote from non-violent drug offenders who have served their time, and more. The Supreme Court has weakened the Voting Rights Act.
Republicans in the Congress want to turn Medicare into a voucher, gut Medicaid and turn it into a block grant, slash food stamps, Pell grants, and other support for the vulnerable. Analysis by the Center of Budget and Policy Proposals finds 69 percent of the cuts just passed by Republicans in the House come from programs for low wage workers.
We do well to honor Lyndon Johnson. He understood the power of government to make America better. But it is not enough to honor his legacy. It is time to stir ourselves, as he did, to not simply defend his contributions, but to extend them to meet our own modern challenges.
