By Teeka Tiwari
In the mid-1960s, under the leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson, the U.S. government went on an incredible spending spree.
Between 1960 and 1965, spending tripled from $40.9 billion to $122.7 billion, largely due to the Vietnam War.
Johnson also launched his Great Society initiative during the decade.
It was an ambitious series of legislation and programs with the goal of ending poverty, reducing crime, abolishing inequality, and improving the environment.
In total, the U.S. spent $120 billion fighting the war in Indochina, or about $1 trillion in today’s dollars.
Many Great Society programs such as Medicare live on today over 50 years later, with an estimated total running cost of over $16 trillion.
But in the 1960s, the U.S. dollar was still pegged to gold. That meant other nations could redeem their dollar reserves for gold.