War On Poverty Vietnam Essay

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The Vietnam war damaged the United States’ economy which played a big role in the reason why nineteen percent of the United States population experienced poverty. This is because the government was paying an estimate of 167 billion dollars on the Vietnam war on top of the fact that President Johnson created the “War on Poverty”. The economy suffered greatly from his generosity.
“His decision to finance both ‘guns and butter’ – a major war and the Great Society simultaneously, without a significant increase in taxes unleashed an acceleration of inflation peaking at a runaway double-digit in mid 1970s.” (“Postwar Impact of Vietnam”)
However, he created the 10% tax return in 1969 so he could continue the War on Poverty and keep up with the …show more content…

The Civil Rights Movement was started because the southern states still inhabited an unequal world of segregation between whites and African Americans. While this was all happening President Johnson declared that he was going to do try to end poverty at his State of the Union Speech on January 8, 1964. He proposed for a nation-wide war on poverty in Washington D.C. to the United States Congress on March 16, 1964. This location is important because Washington D.C. is the United States’ capitol. The “war on poverty” was an unconditional war, meaning there was no weapons used. The term "war on poverty" generally refers to a set of initiatives proposed by President Johnson that were based off President Kennedy’s idea to create programs aimed to spread the United States’ prosperity to those in poverty (Gale Group, The Great Society, galegroup.com). The effort to make a change was centered around four pieces of legislation which include The Social Security Amendments of 1965, The Food Stamp Act of 1964, The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, and The Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Social Security Amendments of 1965 created Medicare and Medicaid and also expanded social security benefits for people who were retired,