President Johnson's great society: goals, achievements, and philosophy - Essay Example

President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was a massive social program that was implemented as an attempt to create more economic and educational equality among the socio-economic classes in America.In his speech announcing the Great Society Johnson (1964) called for "an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in out time". In addition it called for a new vision of equality that included the total rebuilding of the entire American urban area (Johnson, 1964). It was the most ambitious social program since the New Deal and called for building low cost housing, providing food for the poor, and education for the disadvantaged. While the program has been criticized as too expensive and overly bureaucratic, it left the legacies of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Medicare, and Medicaid (Nash et al., 2004, pp.977-978).Johnson's deep commitment to the Great Society was rooted in his fundamental philosophy that believed all people were created equal and were deserving of equal opportunity. In a conversation with Bill Moyers, his Press Secretary, Johnson (n.d.) stated, ""I have a vision-a vision of a land where a child can [pauses] have a home to live in. [. . .] And read what he wants to, and can wish what he wants to, and can dream what he wants to" (Lyndon Johnson, n.d.).