President Johnson's term in office from 1964 to 1968, Johnson had declared a war on poverty. This is made evident when Johnson attempts to attack poverty at its roots. He states,Our chief weapons in a more pinpointed attack will be better schools, and better health, and better homes, and better training, and better job opportunities to help more Americans, especially young Americans, escape from squalor and misery and unemployment rolls where other citizens help to carry them.The words of Johnson outline the premise of the liberal consensus, that given the opportunity individuals would work to The "Great Society" programs that were to enable the change, were for the most part enacted under Johnson during his term in office. This stems largely from his experience and power with Congress.In the context of the liberal consensus the civil rights movement had made some important strides during the 1960's also. The liberal consensus pushed for the integration of schools to allow for minorities to give themselves the education that they needed to participate equally in the job market. Moreover, the liberal consensus pushed for integration and the ideology that individuals if given equal opportunity would be able to solve the problems of discrimination through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.The economy of the United States was the most important issue in solidifying the liberal consensus. From the 1950's through the 1960's the United States economy appeared as if it were on an endless track of prosperity. In the 1960's the United States Gross National Product was up 31%. Murray writes that, "Economists believed that in Keynesian economics they had found the key to perpetual prosperity." The belief that the economy would continue to grow, fed the belief in the liberal consensus' ideology that in allowing for free competition in the marketplace not only would economic problems be solved but also the problems of poverty and of civil rights....
