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Lyndon Johnson Term: 1963-1969 Political Party: Democrat Vice President: First term no VP, second term: Hurbert Humphrey

Lyndon Johnson became president when Kennedy was assassinated. Coming in as a president that was not elected in made Johnson want to more follow Kennedy's footsteps and keep his programs going. Johnson did make his own decisions though, like making the Great Society that focused on civil rights and just helping America out in general. Unfortunately his decision to intervene as much as he did in the Vietnam war severely hurt his popularity. Johnson deserves a B for his terms as president.

One of Johnson's main goals was to really help out America domestically more than internationally. Civil rights was still a issue going on and Johnson was able to pass some legislation to help with that. Johnson also really wanted to keep Kennedy's policies alive. This gained him much popularity with the people and with Congress. The Great Society, however, was not Kennedy's plan. The Great Society had two main purposes; to eliminate poverty and eliminate racial injustice. New major spending programs were installed for education, medical care, and urban problems. This goal was achieved as all of these issues were not completely resolved, but were more under control than they were before. The last goal of Johnson was his worst. Johnson wanted a lot of involvement in the Vietnam war. At one time there were 500,000 American soldiers in Vietnam. The public saw this as a waste of American lives and his popularity went down quite a bit.

Johnson's relationship with Congress started off slow but it did get better. During Kennedy's administration Congress was very slow at getting around to looking at the legislation that he wanted passed. However, once Johnson became president he was able to get Congress to speed up the process and pass what he wanted passed. Since most of Congress was democratic, Johnson was able to get a lot passed. He only had to veto 30 times, which is very minimal compared to some other past presidents. Congress also liked the Great Society and Johnson's plan to focus most of his policies on the domestic issues in America.

Johnson's decision with the most positive outcome was the Great Society plan. This plan helped with all of America's domestic issues. This plan was mostly focused on civil rights, medicare, poverty, and education. With the good relationship with Congress Johnson was able to pass some legislation to help these issues. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were 2 that were passed to help the issue of civil rights. Medicare was used to help the old and families that could not afford medical care given by the government. The War on Poverty was Johnson's way of eliminating the poverty issue in America. The poverty rate was going down very slowly and he wanted to speed things up a bit. Money was also given to education, focusing on elementary and secondary education. The Higher Education Act provided financial aid to struggling students. Overall the Great Society was a huge success. It won Johnson great popularity and it helped out America a great deal.

Johnson's decision with the worst outcome was the way he handled the Vietnam war. Before he became president the Vietnam war seemed unimportant compared to the domestic problems in America and the Cold War with Russia. However, Johnson started greatly increasing the number of troops going over to Vietnam. He claimed his reason for this was the whole containment policy. Johnson believed that communism needed to be stopped before it could spread to other parts of the world. The US went through great inflation which was against all the domestic issues that he was trying to fix. The war also produced a very large number of American casualties. This greatly angered the public. Younger people were beginning to be drafted an criticism rose up around Johnson. All this criticism was the main reason that Johnson did not run for re-election in the next election. Little good actually came from our involvement in the Vietnam war and this really hurt Johnson as president.

Johnson's decision with the most long lasting effect on the country was all the things he did with the Great Society. This plan as a whole helped with some of the major issues that were going on in America. The civil rights issue was especially helped with the Civil rights act and the Voting rights act. With those acts blacks were less discriminated against in certain situations. Instead of just putting the acts in place, Johnson also made sure that they were being enforced. This really helped out all the African-americans in this country be treated more like they should have been treated.

America was better off after Johnson was president. He made some very smart decisions and did a lot of things right. Trying to focus on more domestic issues than international ones was exactly what this country needed at that time. Johnson was criticized for his foreign policies especially with how he handled the Vietnam War. However this was really the only thing he did wrong, it was just a very big wrong that he made. In this case the good decisions are able to outweigh the bad ones, so Johnson deserves a B for his terms as president.

"Great Society." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 21 May 2010. . "American President: Lyndon Baines Johnson." Miller center of Public Affairs. Web. 21 May 2010. . "Lyndon B. Johnson." The White House. Web. 21 May 2010. .