The Great Society Quotes

“The passions and pain of the Vietnam War have subsided to a degree to which we are now able to look at the broader achievements of the Johnson administration,” said playwright Robert Schenkkan, whose Broadway show about the president, “All the Way,” is playing to packed houses.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“It seems entirely possible to me that by the 2016 election, the public will be ready to entertain a much bolder set of ideas about creating a more shared prosperity,” said Robert Reich, who was labor secretary under Clinton.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“Standing at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, Johnson signed the Immigration Act on Oct. 3, 1965. It abolished the national origins formula that had been in place since 1924, meaning that preference was no longer given to immigrants from some European countries. “This system violated the basic principle of American democracy – the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man,” Johnson said. “It has been un-American in the highest sense.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“Johnson’s legislative record also stands as a contrast to the polarization and paralysis of Washington today. The 89th Congress of 1965 and 1966 is regarded as arguably the most productive in American history, with a burst of legislation that exceeded in scope even the laws that were put in place during the New Deal.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“If there is a character who embodies the show’s roots in the Great Society, Davis said, it’s Grover. “I think the Great Society is Grover,” Davis said. Nothing gets him down.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“When Johnson birthed the NEA and the NEH, the budgets were tiny. (The NEH began life in 1966 with an appropriation of $5.9 million, and the NEA $2.9 million.) Under Richard Nixon, both budgets increased exponentially, and two of the NEA’s strongest leaders were Republican appointees: Nancy Hanks, who served under Nixon and Gerald Ford, and Gioia, who served under George W. Bush.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“Conservative critics saw little reason for government to get into the culture business, and great potential danger. Today we see Johnson’s arts and humanities programs through the lens of the culture wars, when the NEA was accused of blasphemy and obscenity, the NEH of academic insularity and historical revisionism, and PBS of political bias.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“The commercialization of public television has continued steadily, regardless of the political climate or administration.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“I think that President Johnson believed that the human experience needed to be nourished by face-to-face engagement and by bringing together people of different backgrounds and different races,” says Darren Walker,”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“There is still little agreement whether any or all of this was a good idea — whether the government should be involved in delivering ideas and beauty to the people, whether it is an effective system or a ridiculously cumbersome one. But in the extraordinarily active 89th Congress, which began in 1965, Johnson did something unprecedented in American history: He put art, culture and beauty on the same footing as roads, rights, commerce and security.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“Fifty years after Johnson laid out his ambitious agenda — which led to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and many other programs — Washington now does far more in an effort to lift ordinary Americans above their troubles. The second is that government often fails to fulfill those broad ambitions.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“All of the things that we aspire for in our country really ended up being implemented to some extent in the Great Society,” Ellis said.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“Back then, when Americans were asked how often they trusted the federal government to do what is right, nearly 80 percent said just about always or most of the time, according to data compiled by the Pew Research Center.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“The debate over the proper size and role of the federal government is a distinctly American one.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later

“We are living in Lyndon Johnson’s America,” said Joseph A. Califano Jr., who was LBJ’s top domestic policy adviser from 1965 through the end of his presidency. “This country is more the country of Lyndon Johnson than any other president.”
― The Washington Post, The Great Society: 50 Years Later