What Was Really Great About The Great Society.

• Author: Califano, Joseph A.

The truth behind the conservative myths

IF THERE IS A PRIZE FOR THE POLITICAL scam of the 20th century, it should go to the conservatives for propagating as conventional wisdom that the Great Society programs of the 1960s were a misguided and failed social experiment that wasted taxpayers' money.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century. Since then, the poverty rate has hovered at about the 13 percent level and sits at 13.3 percent today, still a disgraceful level in the context of the greatest economic boom in our history. But if the Great Society had not achieved that dramatic reduction in poverty, and the nation had not maintained it, 24 million more Americans would today be living below the poverty level.

This reduction in poverty did not just happen. It was the result of a focused, tenacious effort to revolutionize the role of the federal government with a series of interventions that enriched the lives of millions of Americans. In those tumultuous Great Society years, the President submitted, and Congress enacted, more than 100 major proposals in each of the 89th and 90th Congresses. In that era of do-it-now optimism, government was neither a bad man to be tarred and feathered nor a bag man to collect campaign contributions, but an instrument to help the most vulnerable in our society.

What has the verdict been? Did the programs we put into place in the 1960s vindicate our belief in the responsibility and capacity of the national government to achieve such ambitious goals--or do they stand as proof of the government's inability to effect dramatic change that helps our people?

A Fair Start

The Great Society saw government as providing a hand up, not a handout. The cornerstone was a thriving economy (which the 1964 tax cut sparked); in such circumstances, most Americans would be able to enjoy the material blessings of society. Others would need the kind of help most of us got from our parents--health care, education and training, and housing, as well as a nondiscriminatory shot at employment--to share in our nation's wealth.

Education and health were central to opening up the promise of American life to all. With the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Great Society for the first time committed the federal government to helping local school districts. Its higher education legislation, with scholarships, grants, and work-study programs, opened college to any American with the necessary brains and ambition, however thin daddy's wallet or empty mommy's purse. Bilingual education, which today serves one million individuals, was designed to teach Hispanic youngsters subjects like math and history in their own language for a couple of years while they learned English, so they would not fall behind. Special education legislation has helped millions of children with learning disabilities.

Since 1965 the federal government has provided more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in 86 million college loans to 29 million students, and more than $14 billion in work-study awards to 6 million students. Today nearly 60 percent of full-time undergraduate students receive federal financial aid under Great Society programs and their progeny.

These programs assure a steady supply of educated individuals who provide the human resources for our economic prosperity. When these programs were enacted, only 41 percent of Americans had completed high school; only 8 percent held college degrees. This past year, more than 81 percent had finished high school and 24 percent had completed college. By establishing the federal government's responsibility to finance this educational surge--and the concept that access to higher education should be determined by ability and ambition, not dollars and cents -- we have amassed the trained talent to be the world's leading industrial, technological, communications and military power today.

Head Start, which has served more than 16 million preschoolers in just about every city and county in the nation and today serves 800,000 children a year, is as American as motherhood and apple pie. Like so many successes, this preschool program has a thousand parents. But how many people remember the battles over Head Start? Conservatives opposed such early childhood education as an attempt by government to interfere with parental control of their children. In the '60s those were code words to conjure up images of Soviet Russia wrenching children from their homes to convert them to atheistic communism. But Lyndon Johnson knew that the rich had kindergartens and nursery schools; and he asked, why not the same benefits for the poor?

The impact of the Great Society's health programs has been stunning. In 1963, most elderly Americans had no health insurance. Few retirement plans provided any such coverage. The poor had little access to medical treatment until they were in critical condition. Only wealthier Americans could get the finest care, and only by traveling to a few big dries like Boston or New York.

Is revolution too strong a word? Since 1965, 79 million Americans have...