Presidential Fact Of The Day

On this day, January 4th, 1965 President Lyndon Baines Johnson proposed his "Great Society" program in his State of the Union Address. As he was 15 days from finishing the late John F. Kennedy's term as his successor following the assassination of the 35th President on November 22, 1963, the proposal included elements of stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy's original "New Frontier" proposals. LBJ's two main goals were the eradication of poverty and racial injustice.

LBJ had been elected to office by his own right on November 3rd, 1964 by defeating Barry Goldwater in the largest landslide for a Presidential candidate to date: 486 electoral votes to 52. This formed the basis of his mandate to enact his Great Society program that also included the formation of Medicare , Medicaid, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Though this program had different targeted goals it rivaled FDR's "New Deal" in scope and size.