The balance between the President of the United States and the Congress: the War on Poverty (1964-1969)

BENUSSI, SILVIA

2010-01-01

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Abstract

The paper analyses the power balance between the President of the United States and the Congress during a specific renewal process due to economic and social choices made by the United States Government. The paper aims to investigate the choices carried out by the United States Government in a time of changes, and how the Congress of United States acted to face the same phenomenon, both through an autonomous initiative and following Government choices. The paper will focus on the time span 1964-1969, when President Johnson launched his political, social and economic strategy known as the Great Society. The ambitious program was developed through various intervention lines, aimed to an improvement of life for the lower classes and an end of the segregation against African American people. Definitely, one of the most important results achieved by the Great Society was the translation into law of the most important requests of the Civil Rights Movement: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended racial segregation, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 helped enfranchise African American people through a wider political power. Even more difficult was the economic intervention turned to end the poverty, the so-called War on Poverty, whose opening act was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. The War on Poverty relied on the belief that the best way to defy poverty wasn’t a plain money aid, but the improvement of life through education, job training and development of the communities. An important side of the War on Poverty was the idea of the participation of poor in outlining and managing the programs appointed to help them. Programs like Medicare and Medicaid go back to the Great Society; today they still provide sanitary service to the elders and to the poor. Nonetheless the effectiveness of the War on Poverty has been questioned for long. Due to its penetration into the American law and institutions, it’s especially useful as a case study, in order to understand the balance of the political and constitutional system.