Social welfare and unemployment programmes are an area that is mostly defined by limited success and compromise. Kennedy had grand plans for this area, for example he wanted to introduce Medicare to help the elderly and the poor have access to healthcare however the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Wilbur Mills manage to quash this bill by refusing to give it enough time to be discussed. Another failure in this area was educational reforms. Kennedy proposed the School Assistance bill in 1961 which asked for $2.3 billion over the course of three years to be spent on building new schools and increasing teachers’ pay but the bill was struck down in the House of Representatives. Kennedy did use executive orders to increase school lunch and milk programmes to the poor however which, whilst still being a positive
Social welfare and unemployment programmes are an area that is mostly defined by limited success and compromise. Kennedy had grand plans for this area, for example he wanted to introduce Medicare to help the elderly and the poor have access to healthcare however the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Wilbur Mills manage to quash this bill by refusing to give it enough time to be discussed. Another failure in this area was educational reforms. Kennedy proposed the School Assistance bill in 1961 which asked for $2.3 billion over the course of three years to be spent on building new schools and increasing teachers’ pay but the bill was struck down in the House of Representatives. Kennedy did use executive orders to increase school lunch and milk programmes to the poor however which, whilst still being a positive