Questions on the assignment? Turabian guide.
One week from today:
- Malcolm X, Prospects for Freedom in 1965, https://www.icit-digital.org/articles/malcolm-x-on-prospects-for-freedom-in-1965-january-7-1965
- John A. Andrew III, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998), ch. 2. ON CANVAS
In 1966, LBJ reflected on his first big job:
I eagerly sought to work with president Roosevelt in the NYA and I became State Director for the State of Texas. [Merriman Smith of UPI] asked a number of questions at the Press Office the other day on various birthdays that I had had. I thought about my NYA experiences and how we fought to get more children in elementary school in a work program very similar to what we are doing now in our poverty program; and how we tried to keep the children from dropping out of high school in 1934, 1935, and 1936. We tried to have a college program where they could have a higher education. We tried to improve our health activities by training nurses in NYA, just as we are training them today. Here in this room, the first month I was President, we formulated the poverty program.
Won a House seat:
Early victory with a tax cut. In the House and Senate, Democrats supported it more heavily than Republicans!
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Johnson 224-228)
- Three days in, he calls MLK
- Public opinion on the 1964 Civil Rights Act
- Senate roll call to break the filibuster
- LBJ to his mentor, Richard Russell:
Johnson: Dick, you’ve got to get out of my way. I’m going to run over you.
Russell: You may do that, but, by God, it’s going to cost you the South and cost
you the election.
Johnson: If that’s the price I’ve got to pay, I’ll pay it gladly.
Goldwater votes no
LBJ crushes him, and Dems end up with 68 Senate seats and 295 House seats.
LBJ had a keen sense of policy windows. In January 1965, he said:
“I was just elected President by the biggest popular margin in the history of the country, fifteen million votes. Just by the natural way people think and because Barry Goldwater scared the hell out of them, I have already lost about two of these fifteen and am probably getting down to thirteen. If I get in any fight with Congress, I will lose another couple of million, and if I have to send any more of our boys into Vietnam, I may be down to eight million by the end of the summer"
Voting rights 1965
Hollywood (about 2:00) v. History (about 6:00)
Medicare
Prequels
Wilbur Mills does a layer cake to build support:
- Part A: Hospital coverage
- Part B: co-opts the Byrnes Constructive Republican Alternative Program (think of the acronym).Medicare Part B is the medical insurance portion covering doctors' services, outpatient care, and durable medical equipment (e.g., wheelchairs). It requires a monthly premium, an annual deductible, and a coinsurance payment
- Medicaid -- based on the Kerr-Mills law that had covered the elderly poor. A joint state-federal program for the needy.
- Path dependence: the formal name of the bill is "The Social Security Amendments of 1965"
- Policy creates politics: after passage, AMA supports Medicare.
- Policy Windows and Issue-Attention Cycle. Medicare increases demand for services. , Medicare originally rabn a fee-for-service model, which paid providers for each service performed. This created an incentive for providers to increase the volume of services. RESULT: MEDICAL PRICE INFLATION
Policy eclipse: Why did people pay so little attention to Medicaid?
Foresight and omission: Why not prescription drugs?
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