he wanted to be the President who finished what FDR had started. Equally important, he shared the contemporary liberal view that the United States, a rich and resourceful country, could afford to do something. Johnson also believed unquestioningly in another liberal faith: that government had the skill to improve the lot of its citizens. What motivated Johnson to fight poverty, in short, was not the worsening of a social problem—higher percentages of Americans had been poor in the 1950s—but the belief that government could, and should, enter the battle. These optimistic expectations, not
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