American Welfare State if Kennedy lives

LBJ was effective very effective at getting the Great Society through Congress.

In contrast, when Medicare went into the Senate in 1962 it lost 52 to 48. Only 5 Republicans supported it and 21 Democrats opposed it.

Had Kennedy lived, what would the American Welfare State have ended up being like?
 
I know that Nixon wanted to implement a universal basic income, which was later revised to a negative income tax, which was later revised to the EITC.

Without the Great Society, it is possible that the US welfare state develops in that direction.
 
LBJ was effective very effective at getting the Great Society through Congress.

In contrast, when Medicare went into the Senate in 1962 it lost 52 to 48. Only 5 Republicans supported it and 21 Democrats opposed it.

Had Kennedy lived, what would the American Welfare State have ended up being like?

I don't think you can view the 1962 defeat as a forecast of what would have happened in 1965 if JFK had lived. In between, there would have been the 1964 presidential election, and while I don't think JFK would have defeated Goldwater as overwhelmingly as LBJ did in OTL, he would still probably have won quite decisively--the final Gallup poll before JFK's death (after his popularity had declined from its Cuban Missile Crisis highs, after civil rights cost him support in the South) showed him with a still healthy 59-28 percent job approval rating https://plus.google.com/u/0/1177130...5951181922493340962&oid=117713002461778944960 and leading Goldwater by sixteen points. A decisive JFK victory would pave the way for a more favorable congressional reception for Medicare and other legislation supported by the administration.

OTOH, it could be argued that JFK, even fresh from a decisive victory, would not have pressed as hard as LBJ for progressive social and economic legislation. This was what LBJ himself sometimes suggested: " Late in the day on Saturday, November 23, 1963, Walter Heller, Kennedy’s chief economic adviser, was called into the Oval Office to brief [the new president, Lyndon B.] Johnson. “Just as I was about to go out of his office and had opened the door,” Heller wrote in notes he made just after the conversation and marked HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL, “the President gently pushed it shut and drew me back in and said, ‘Now, I want to say something about all this talk that I’m a conservative who is likely to go back to the Eisenhower ways or give in to the economy bloc in Congress. It’s not so, and I want you to tell your friends—Arthur Schlesinger, [John Kenneth] Galbraith, and other liberals—that it is not so … If you looked at my record, you would know that I am a Roosevelt New Dealer. As a matter of fact, to tell the truth, John F. Kennedy was a little too conservative to suit my taste.”" https://webcache.googleusercontent....-of-poverty/309480/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (Of course, this may simply be a case of LBJ playing to his audience, Heller being a liberal.)
 
Except even with Goldwater running a terrible campaign (and purposely so, to an extent - he says he picked his running mate just to piss off Johnson) and LBJ having a perfect convergence of forces behind him, the Democrats only picked up 2 Senate Seats in 1964.

One of the seats the Democrats gained was RFK's, who likely wouldn't run if his brother lived. I'm not sure how that race would go without him running.

Two other races were incredibly tight.

Nevada: Howard Cannon (D) (50.02) - Paul Laxalt (R) (49.98)
Ohio: Stephen M Young (D) (50.2) - Robert Taft Jr (R) (49.8)

If Goldwater ran to win and picked a balancing veep (ending with him doing around 5 points better nationally) that could pull two more GOP senators over the line.
 
My point wasn't that the Senate would be more Democratic but that the political atmosphere after a decisive JFK victory in 1964 would be different from the situation in 1962, leading many middle-of-the-road Republicans and Democrats who opposed Medicare in 1962 to support it in 1965. That after all is what happened in OTL. The vote for Medicare was overwhelming, and much more than could be explained by the increased number of Democrats after the 1964 election: https://www.ssa.gov/history/tally65.html
 
Any experts too discuss this one: Kennedy is unable to get anything substantial legislated, neither can Nixon. Circa 1975 the welfare state is no better developed than 1960. Maybe some token improvements of reconfiguring, but nothing substantial. How does it play out with the end of the 1960s economic boom, inflationary pressures, the movement of manufacturing offshore ramping up, the appearance of the rust belt cities, & rising unemployment? All that with less social safety net than OTL?
 
My impression is the shift post-1964 had more to do with LBJ being an excellent cajoler more than anything else.
Yeah, pretty much. JFK was popular but Congress didn't like him. LBJ had been in Congress for 16 years and knew exactly how to get bills through Congress speedily, and used every single trick in the book.
 
IMO the argument about JFK being less effective than LBJ in dealing with Congress ignores the difference in effectiveness between a president who won very narrowly (as JFK did in 1960) and one who wins by a landslide (as LBJ did in 1964 and as I am convinced JFK would also have done against Goldwater that year). (And of course the very fact that JFK had been assassinated helped LBJ with the civil rights bill--pass it as a memorial to the "martyred" president, etc.) Also, it is noteworthy that people who discount JFK's ability to deal with Congress (contrasting it with LBJ's) usually dwell on 1961-62. Irving Bernstein has argued in *Promises Kept: John F. Kennedy's New Frontier* that "Why was Kennedy's legislative record so much stronger in 1 963 that it had been in 1961—62? The President persisted. He was convinced that the country needed and wanted his program. When he got licked on a particular issue, he admitted that he had lost a battle but insisted that he would win the war. "The President of the United States,” Sundquist pointed out, “is always heard.” He slowly wore down congressional resistance. In addition, Kennedy was much more self-confident and a far stronger President in 1963 than he had been in 1961." (p. 288)

Among JFK's legislative accomplishments in 1963: The ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treaty#After_the_Moscow_agreement (I am sure that if JFK had been assassinated earlier and LBJ got the treaty ratified, some people here would claim that JFK could never have gotten the necessary two-thirds in the Senate--he just didn't have LBJ's wheeling-dealing skills!) Also, as I point out at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/R_ay1_3mMbg/p2JMlIdQ0-IJ JFK worked effectively with Charles Halleck to get the civil rights bill through the House Judiciary Committee after Celler's blunders had put the bill at risk.

To put it another way: If LBJ had been the Democratic nominee in 1960, and had narrowly defeated Nixon that year, I doubt very much that he could have gotten Medicare or a really strong civil rights bill through Congress in his first term--just as in OTL he was not able to get much Great Society legislation through Congress in 1967-68. 1964 (in terms of civil rights) and 1965-6 represented an exceptional opportunity not primarily dependent on LBJ's cajoling skills as compared to JFK's.
 
Further reading & memory recovery pushes me towards the groups who thinks it would require a Goldwater Presidency to gain traction against the social support trend. I cant say at this point that Goldwater could kill it for a decade or more, but the 1965 legislation might be stalled & the movement weaken slightly. That Goldwaters foreign policies might be a serious distraction needs to be considered in this.

In any case my question still stands as a hypothetical:

Circa 1975 the welfare state is no better developed than 1960. Maybe some token improvements of reconfiguring, but nothing substantial. How does it play out with the end of the 1960s economic boom, inflationary pressures, the movement of manufacturing offshore ramping up, the appearance of the rust belt cities, & rising unemployment? All that with less social safety net than OTL?
 
Going by the OTL behavior of the kennedy clan, to show one example of extreme short term thinking/pettiness: Ted Kennedy's turning down a workable UHC plan purely for short term, next eleciton cycle reasons it's VERY easy to see JFK responding to civil rights protests by doing a 180 on his positions if he lives. RFK would also jump right, and well Teddy may or may not.

Given the media's pre-watergate deference to the presidency don't expect to see any footage of second term, or post-presidency JFK using the n-word publicly, but you just know he would if things go anything like they did otl 1963-68 .
 
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