Did any U.S. President do more damage to the country in the space of five years than LBJ? He killed 50,000 American boys with his useless war in Vietnam. His Great Society War on Poverty programs have bankrupted the country and enslaved the poor in deeper poverty and dependence. Reading his words in the article below convinces me this idiot had an IQ below 90. His reasoning is on the level with a 3rd grader. The American people deserve everything we get when we elect people like LBJ, Bush and Obama.
Overreliance on entitlements harms U.S.
Sunday, January 27,2013
Journalist Bill Moyers, who worked as an assistant to President Lyndon Johnson, shared memories in a column last year about how his old boss thought about our entitlement programs.
It was under Johnson, who championed the “Great Society” in the 1960s, that a good portion of the runaway government spending we are trying to get under control today originated.
Johnson signed into law Medicare, Medicaid, the War on Poverty programs, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Moyers recounted that for Johnson, Social Security and Medicare “were about a lot more than economics.”
He recalls a time when the Johnson administration was supporting retroactive increases in Social Security payments. Moyers said he argued for the increases as economic stimulus. But Johnson called him and said:
“My inclination would be … that it ought be retroactive as far back as you can get it … because none of them ever get enough. That they are entitled to it. That’s an obligation of ours. It’s just like your mother writing you and saying she wants $20, and I always sent mine $100 when she did. I always did it because I thought she was entitled to it. … We do know that it affects the economy. But that’s not the basis to go to the Hill, or the justification. We’ve got to say that by God you can’t treat grandma this way. She’s entitled to it and we promised it to her.”
I don’t think we could have a clearer picture of Johnson’s muddled thinking about his job and the role of government, which contributed so much to the problems we have today.
Johnson’s words sound so wonderfully compassionate. But let’s get things in perspective.
He saw no difference in his relationship and responsibilities toward his own mother, and sending her his own money, and his responsibilities as president of the United States and the relationship of government to citizens.
There is a world of difference between the appropriate responsibility of parents toward their children and children toward their parents, and politicians deciding on how to spend someone else’s money for someone else’s children, parents or grandparents.
Johnson didn’t seem to grasp, or care, about the fact that family and government are two entirely different social institutions that serve very different purposes.
So the Johnson administration years marked not just the beginning of many huge government programs that we can’t pay for today, but they also marked a major cultural change where government began displacing family and personal responsibility.
It is no accident that as the American welfare state grew, the American family collapsed.
In 1960, 72 percent of American adults were married. By 2010, this was down to 51 percent.
The change is most pronounced among two of today’s largest Democratic Party constituencies: youths and blacks. In 1960, 45 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 were married compared to 9 percent today. In 1960, 61 percent of black adults were married, compared to 31 percent today.
Means testing, targeted tax increases on the wealthy, raising the retirement age — all proposed ways to keep Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid going as they are — all simply grow the American welfare state, increase dependence of working Americans on government and other taxpayers, and displace family and traditional values with socialism.
This is why Democratic leaders are not stressed out by the entitlements crisis facing us. More socialism in America is what they want.
They are not bothered that slow growth and high unemployment go hand in hand with this socialism.
Republicans won’t succeed as an opposition party if they keep tiptoeing around the fact that facing America today is a crisis of vision and values.
They need to stop selling the alternative to welfare as unpleasantness and spending cuts. They need to start selling that restored prosperity will only come with a rebirth of American freedom and the values that go with it.
Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education. She can be reached at www.urbancure.org.
Pirate Jo says:
In this strange world, old people who get their checks from the government are “independent,” whereas those who get their checks from family members are not.
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28th January 2013 at 1:12 pm
sangell says:
Its odd that Texas has produced the two biggest ‘guns and butter’ politicians in American history. As ‘war presidents’ they were simply awful. Johnson knew nothing about miiltary operations yet he sat in the White House and mismanaged a war we should have won easily had he just stopped interfering. Neither he or Bush were willing to suspend their domestic programs to prosecute the wars they wanted to fight. Asking the public to sacrifice, even a little, does not undermine the war effort , it assists it as people understand it is both necessary and demand our forces achieve the objectives the president should have to define. Neither Johnson or Bush could define any objective to their war so they couldn’t very well demand the public make any sacrifice in order to reach them.
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28th January 2013 at 1:39 pm
Eddie says:
It’s often been said of LBJ that he never read a book after graduating college. What he excelled at was congressional dealmaking….his becoming President was never intended..and a fine example of the Peter Principle in action.
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28th January 2013 at 1:58 pm
AWD says:
The most expensive president in history:
War on poverty: $16 trillion spent and counting. Destroyed families, marriage, has put 100 million people into welfare dependance/parasitism.
Medicare: $50 trillion (or more) in unfunded liabilities.
Medicaid: Costs $385 billion per year for people that don’t work.
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28th January 2013 at 2:02 pm
Administrator says:
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28th January 2013 at 2:14 pm
Llpohi used t says:
Know the fellow who flew LbJ in Air Force one. He hated LbJ. One story he told is how LbJ made his advisors accompany him into the small AF1 toilet while he took a shit. Nuff said.
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28th January 2013 at 3:03 pm
GreasedUpWillie says:
I read Robert Caro’s biography on him several years ago. Confirmed much of what was posted earlier. He was kind of white trash in his area of Texas. He spent the rest of his life trying to grab power, hold power, and impose power over those around him. Kind of a classic psychopath, he would kiss the ass and charm anyone above him, and be a complete shit to anyone beneath him. And if you are a consipracy theorist, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would fit the profile better of someone amenable to a coup d’etat. Quite possibly the worst president in american history.
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28th January 2013 at 3:33 pm
Gorilla says:
He was also a huge racist. Look up his quotes on the Great Society and appointing blacks to political positions. He said the blacks would be voting democrat forever after his welfare programs went through. He was one of our worst residents ever, up to now.
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28th January 2013 at 4:17 pm
Llpoh says:
Gorilla said “worst residents”. Probably a typo, but extremely accurate.
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28th January 2013 at 4:29 pm
SSS says:
“Kind of a classic psychopath, he would kiss the ass and charm anyone above him, and be a complete shit to anyone beneath him.”
GreasedUpWillie, commenting on LBJ
Quite true. And those “beneath him” included his wife Lady Bird, whom Johnson constantly berated, belittled, and bullied. This guy was such a complete and utter asshole to other human beings, he would flaunt his affairs with other women not only to other people, but his own wife. Why Lady Bird ever stayed married to that sack of shit is beyond me.
This sorry motherfucker is a charter member of the presidential Hall of Shame.
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28th January 2013 at 5:28 pm
taxSlave says:
I have a button from the sixties left to me by my older brother:
“LSD NOT LBJ”
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28th January 2013 at 7:34 pm
fool on the hill says:
The wife, a bright woman, owned most of Bell Aircraft that made hueys.
Had her daughters married out of the white house.
Realized that America was not ready for a woman president.
And JFK was………..in the way.
Connect the dots.
A right handed shooter …………..
His target out a window to his far right………….
Using a very light bolt gun which fires a powerful cartridge……
And Howdy Doody didn’t have wooden balls!!!!
One of his speeches:
“My fellow Americans, it is with a heavy…wallet….er ah heart…”
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28th January 2013 at 8:34 pm
Eddie says:
LBJ and Ladybird made most of their money from radio and television stations here in Austin. It all started with an investment of $17,500 made by a savvy Ladybird in 1943. Of course, it didn’t hurt their business that LBJ was a Congressman and later a Senator. Makes dealing with the FCC a lot easier, apparently.
They also eventually owned two banks here. LBJ’s net worth as President has been estimated at roughly 100 million dollars. Not bad for a guy who began his career as a school teacher in South Texas.
Texas politicians wrote the book on “coming to Washington to do good, and staying to do well.”
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28th January 2013 at 8:55 pm
Chronic Agitator says:
This is not new. We viet vets have known for a very long time about the nitwit LBJ
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28th January 2013 at 10:53 pm
Stan says:
JFK hated LBJ and could barely stand to speak to him. Only for political expediency
Was he chosen as VP and look how that turned out.
A Vietnam vet said it best on the occasion of LBJ s death-
‘May he and his family burn slowly and eternally in hell’
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28th January 2013 at 4:46 am