US Government Since Kennedy

To address Romney’s comment regarding the growth of government since Kennedy. After going through pages and pages of information on the internet, here’s what I got in a nut shell.  

Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty and in August 1964, Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act that created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) within the executive branch, OEO administered 10 separate programs aimed at eliminating the symptoms and causes of poverty. In 1965, Congress passed the Public Works and Economic Development Act (PW&EDA), which reorganized the Areas Redevelopment Administration into the Economic Federal Rural Development Policy and the Economic Development Administration (EDA). Like its predecessor, EDA primarily dispensed business loans and public works grants. From 1965 to 1972, EDA’s overall experience was “mixed,” as some programs were very successful while others accomplished little. The main problems were political pressure to disperse aid to as many congressional districts as possible and as a result not enough assistance was targeted to those areas that might have benefited most from it. Kennedy established the President’s Regional Appalachian Commission which on March 9, 1965, became the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) with an act signed by President Johnson. ARC was a hybrid institution - a confederation of States acting on a regional basis funded by congressional appropriations.

It may be hard for us to believe how serious we all were in 1965 about eliminating poverty, and how deeply many people believed that it could and should be done, and quickly. Both OEO and Commerce had huge programs and even greater ambitions by 1965. In February 1965, following the issuance of Johnson's Executive Order 11307, the Rural Community Development Service (RCDS) was created to coordinate rural development outreach for USDA and other departments. This new agency was an expanded version of the Office of Rural Areas Development which had been in existence since 1961; the Economic Development Division (EDD) of the Economic Research Service was also created in 1965. The 1968 Housing and Urban Development Act also enhanced rural housing prospects because of its provision for interest supplements to low-income families.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) (1862), has grown over time so that it now regulates the price, production, import, and export of agricultural crops; the safety of meat, poultry, and certain other food products; a wide variety of other agricultural and farm-related activities; and broad-reaching welfare programs. Agriculture regulatory authorities have changed over time, but now include the U.S. Forest Service (1905), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (1935), the Foreign Assistance Act created Farm Service Agency (1961), the Food and Consumer Service (1969), the Agricultural Marketing Service (1972), the Federal Grain Inspection Service (1976), the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (1977), the Foreign Agricultural Service (1974), the Food Safety and Inspection Service (1981), and the Rural Development Administration (1990).

In 1966, Congress created the Department of Transportation (DOT) which began full operations on April l, 1967; it combined major federal transportation responsibilities. On that day, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) became one of several organizations within DOT including the National Transportation Safety Board. There have been many changes and additions to the FAA’s responsibilities including noise standards (1968), the Airport and Airway Development Act (1970), and due in part to the competitive environment created by the Airline Deregulation Act (1978) that phased out CAB's economic regulation of the airlines and ended CAB at the end of 1984 the FAA's organizational structure has continued to evolve. FAA transferred much of its authority to regional organizations until the Aviation Safety Research Act (1988) again charged managers at national headquarters with more direction of field activities and mandated greater emphasis on long-range research planning, studying such issues as aging aircraft structures and human factors affecting safety. In February 1991, the FAA replaced the National Airspace System Plan with the more comprehensive Capital Investment Plan. The new plan included higher levels of automation, new radar, communications, and weather forecasting systems. In 1994, the FAA was restructured along its six key lines of business to make better use of resources and it began enhancing the ATC system while working to apply a Global Positioning System satellite technology to civil aeronautics and other notable programs that included progress toward the implementation of Free Flight, a concept that increased the flexibility to fly direct routes from one point to another. A seventh line of business was added one year later when the Office of Commercial Space Transportation was transferred to the FAA from the Office of the Secretary of Transportation. The addition of this office gave FAA regulatory responsibilities relating to the launching of space payloads by the private sector. During 1996, reform legislation made further important changes that included increased flexibility for the FAA regarding acquisition and personnel policies. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, dealt a severe blow to U.S. civil aviation and just 2 months after the attack the government transferred aviation security oversight from the FAA to the new Transportation Security Administration within the Department of Transportation. No, I’m not done with my nutshell – to be continued tomorrow.