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Two main targets of the Great Society were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched under Johnson's watch. The Great Society was similar to the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but differed sharply in types of programs enacted. Its agenda included civil rights legislation, Johnson's "war on poverty", education reform, the medicare and medicaid program, the national endowment for the arts and humanities, funding for public broadcasting, funding for mass transit, gun control legislation, immigration reform, consumer protection legislation, environmental protection legislation including beautification programs and even cigarette package labeling.
Johnson's vision of a Great Society was stifled by the realities of the war in Vietnam. The cost of the war along with the costs of Johnson's domestic programs strained the economy. As the war became more and more unpopular, Johnson lost the political capital needed to continue these reforms. Critics of the Great Society also charged that these programs just created bureaucracies and threw money at problems without producing results. Nevertheless, the impact of the Great Society in many areas was considerable and measurable in some areas. One obvious example was the health care made available to elderly Americans, many of who had no such benefits previously. Also between 1965 and 1968, family income of African-American families rose from 54 percent to 60 percent of white-family income.
