Johnson's belief in bread-and-butter liberalism as advanced by the New Deal reflected his regional interests. He insisted that federal aid was the key to breaking down the isolation and destitution of the South, by far the nation's most poverty-stricken region. He took care while President to direct as much federal money as possible to the South and West, thereby helping to bring the Sun Belt, as it became called, into the mainstream of the American economy. But Johnson's faith in the State as benefactor of socio-economic progress transcended regional particularism. In this belief, the essence
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