Maybe there’s an angle I’m not catching, but it seems to me that the cost of the war would have made it harder to pay for the “Great Society” programs, not easier.
It all came out of the federal budget. Without the cost of the war, wouldn’t there have been much more funds for those programs?
It would be interesting to know how much of our $20 trillion in debt is directly related to the “Great Society” / “War on Poverty” programs also.
To people like LBJ the war and attendant protests
were worth it just to keep the taxpayer from realizing
how much the “great” society was going to cost.
But hey, we can trust politicians right?
Politicians are actors.
In ancient Greece actors had a name...hypocrites.