The American Spectator

Political Hay

LBJ's List and the Conservative Challenge

By Jeffrey Lord on 6.10.08 @ 12:08AM

Somewhere, Lyndon B. Johnson is insulted.

Claiming victory in the race for the Democrats' nomination, Senator Barack Obama said this:

"Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal..."

Excuse me? You mean all those LBJ Great Society programs didn't provide care for the sick, secure good jobs for the jobless and take care of the environment? On the off-chance the Internet has a space limitation, let's settle for a partial listing of LBJ's efforts for the sick, the jobless, the environment and more as reflected in the list of legislation he proudly compiled and boasted of in his presidential memoir The Vantage Point. The list begins at the end of 1963, when he took office following JFK's assassination, and continues through his last full year, 1968. The titles are as LBJ himself listed them:

College Facilities
Clean Air
Vocational Training
Indian Vocational Training
Manpower Training
Federal Airport Aid
Farm Program
Pesticide Controls
International Development Association
Urban Mass Transit
Water Resources Research
Federal Highway
Civil Service Pay Raise
War on Poverty
Truth-in-Securities
Medicine Bow National Forest
Ozark Scenic Riverway
Administrative Conference
Food Stamps
Housing Act
Nurse Training
Revenues for Recreation
Library Services
Federal Employee Health Benefits
Wilderness Areas

Still with me? Good, because that's only a partial list of what LBJ was so proud of but which Obama apparently feels just wasn't enough. Perhaps Obama has a point. After all, the above is only a partial listing reflecting LBJ's work for just one month of 1963 and only a portion of 1964. Let's move on to 1965, again with space prohibiting a full listing of what Senator Obama seems to feel were LBJ's inadequacies in just not getting the job done:

Medicare
Aid to Education
Higher Education
Four Year Farm Program
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Housing Act
Social Security Increase
Fair Immigration Law
Older Americans
Heart, Cancer, Stroke Program
Drug Controls
Mental Health Facilities
Health Professions
Medical Libraries
Vocational Rehabilitation
Anti-Poverty Program
Arts and Humanities Foundation
Aid to Appalachia
Water Pollution Control
High Speed Transit
Community Health services
Water Resources Council
Water Desalting
Juvenile Delinquency Control
Retirement for Public Servants'

I can hear the chorus growing now. Stop! Stop with the list already! OK. But I warn you, we're not even done with 1965 yet. With 1966, 1967 and 1968 still to go I hate to leave out things like Child Nutrition, Rent Supplements, Clean Rivers, Child Safety, Narcotics Rehabilitation, Water Research, Water for Peace, Air Pollution Control, Education Act, Deaf-Blind Center, Safe Streets, Wholesome Poultry, School Breakfasts, Aircraft Noise Abatement, Better Housing, Oil Revenues for Recreation, Juvenile Delinquency Protection, Guaranteed Student Loans, Gun Controls, Aid-to-Handicapped Children, Hazardous Radiation Protection, and Dangerous Drugs Control.

Is it any wonder that the ghost of LBJ is fuming? All of this and more, oh so much more, and suddenly here comes this Obama guy insisting that only by electing him can America "begin" to " provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless" and cite the Obama-era as the time "our planet began to heal..."

Begin? What was all of this LBJ stuff costing Americans into the trillions? Democrats as skin-flint right-wingers?

Seriously. What has Barack Obama been doing since he was elected a United States Senator four years ago? Has he ever set foot in any of the mammoth concrete boxes crowding the streets of Washington, DC? Has he been inside them to see the hordes of very well-paid bureaucrats who are busy looking over the shoulders of 300-plus million American citizens to make sure they are obeying every last one of the millions of regulatory jots and tittles that enforce LBJ's list?

A PROBLEM HERE is that some Republicans and conservatives have lost the understanding of what it means to be conservative. Politely put, they have lost their way. They fail to ask of Obama why he feels the federal government has been so lacking if the above list -- a partial list, I would remind you -- was such a stunning success. Why, for example, did Community Organizer Obama have to, by his own admission in his recent victory speech, walk "arm-in-arm with community leaders on the South Side of Chicago and (watch) tensions fade as black, white, and Latino fought together for good jobs and good schools"?

Fight for good jobs and good schools? You mean to say that after all those LBJ achievements such as (partial list again) "Vocational Education," "Nurse Training" "Vocational Rehabilitation," "Manpower Training" "Summer Youth Programs," "Aid to Education," "Higher Education," "Education Act," "College Aid Study," and "School Breakfasts," the South Side of Chicago has nothing to show for it?

Well. Interesting, yes?

Why is this so? The reason that Democrats complain of poverty, bad schools and lousy jobs is that -- in places where liberalism rules -- this is exactly what one does find. Take a trip to Detroit and check in on the public school system. Hop on down to New Orleans and see what was going on there before -- not after -- Katrina hit. The failure of LBJ-style liberalism is writ large, for all the world to see. And the answer of Senator Obama is -- more! More! More! MORE!

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Health Care, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Social Security, Medicaid, Environment, Law, NATO, Conservatism, Immigration, Oil, Medicare