-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- `` Who controls the past controls the future . '' President Reagan 's former aides say Obama 's budget repudiates Reaganomics . It 's a line from George Orwell 's novel `` 1984 . '' But it could also serve as the rallying cry for two groups battling over President Obama 's ambitious domestic agenda -- and the legacy of two former presidents . Critics of Obama 's proposed $ 3.5 trillion federal budget say he 's poised to jeopardize the economic gains unleashed by President Reagan . They say he will make the same mistakes that President Lyndon B. Johnson did when he committed massive amounts of federal money to create a slew of anti-poverty programs dubbed `` The Great Society . '' `` The Great Society created a lot of programs and wasted a lot of money , '' said Kenneth Khachigian , a former Reagan speechwriter and adviser . `` The biggest war on poverty was the economic boom started by Reagan . '' But others like Joseph Califano Jr. , Johnson 's senior domestic adviser , say the notion that the Great Society was a failure is one of the `` greatest political scams '' in American history . Republican leaders who have labeled Obama 's budget proposals socialist are rehashing the rhetoric their predecessors used to attack Great Society programs like Head Start 40 years ago , Califano says . `` I 'm hearing the same round of arguments , '' Califano said . `` The Republicans said that if you provide Head Start and preschool education to poor kids , it would ` Sovietize ' our kids and be communistic . '' ` Failure ' of the Great Society The clash between both points of view centers on Obama 's plan for reviving the nation 's economy . The Senate and the House of Representatives passed similar versions of Obama 's $ 3.5 trillion budget for 2010 last week . The budget did n't receive a single Republican vote in either chamber . Both chambers will meet after Easter recess to produce a final budget . Even before last week 's vote , though , Obama 's budget was creating a partisan wedge . Proponents said it would use trillions of dollars to transform education , spark a green industrial revolution and provide health care to all Americans . CNN political analyst David Gergen said Obama 's budget `` set forth the most ambitious reform agenda of any president since Lyndon Johnson . '' Gergen 's comment could be taken as a compliment or a reprimand , depending on one 's historical point of view . Craig Shirley , author of `` Reagan 's Revolution : The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All , '' took it as a warning . His model for reviving the nation is Reagan , who moved `` power from the government to the people '' by cutting taxes and making government less intrusive . Shirley , alluding to an alleged Reagan quip that `` Johnson declared war on poverty and poverty won , '' says out-of-wedlock births , illiteracy and bloated federal programs increased during the Great Society . He says Medicare and Medicaid , two vaunted Great Society programs that provide health care to the poor and elderly , are now virtually bankrupt . `` All evidence says that the Great Society was a failure , '' Shirley said . Khachigian , Reagan 's speechwriter , says Obama 's budget would also create tension between people who fought their way up the economic ladder and those who did not . Under Obama , the well-off would be `` brought back down through higher taxes and subsidizing benefits for people who have not worked as hard . '' Obama 's budget is influenced by the president 's previous job as a community organizer , Khachigian says . `` You ca n't have been a community organizer and not have in your mindset that agencies of the government exist to , as Obama said , to ` spread the wealth , ' '' Khachigian said . If Obama wants to look at an economic blueprint for lifting the nation out of a nasty recession , he should look at Reagan , Khachigian says . Reagan 's tax cuts helped end the deep recession he inherited when he came into office , he said . The economy took off , and everyone benefited . `` I would argue that the biggest war on poverty took place when the economy started booming in 1983 , '' Khachigian said . The ` myth ' of Reagan 's tax cuts Other analysts had a different take on the legacy of the Reagan Revolution and what it can teach Obama . Will Bunch , author of `` Tear Down This Myth : How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future , '' says Reaganomics is built on a fable . Reagan did n't prove that tax cuts and small government lead to economic growth , because he never consistently did both , he says . Bunch says Reagan did cut taxes in 1981 but raised them in succeeding years . He also expanded the federal government and created a huge national debt . `` His initial 1981 tax cuts went so far that he was actually forced to increase taxes a half-dozen times in the years that followed , something you never hear about , '' Bunch said . Obama would do better to follow the example of Johnson , not Reagan , says Califano , Johnson 's senior domestic adviser . He says Johnson 's Great Society was designed to give the most vulnerable Americans -- the poor , the elderly , the disabled and racial minorities -- the same opportunities as the affluent . `` The Great Society saw government as providing a hand up , not a handout , '' said Califano , who wrote about his time with the president in `` The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson . '' He says the Great Society proved that government was n't incompetent . Johnson persuaded Congress to pass at least 100 Great Society proposals . Programs awarded college students financial aid , gave struggling families food stamps and gave millions of Americans access to health insurance for the first time . It also reduced poverty , Califano says . About 22 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line when Johnson took office in 1963 . By 1970 , when the impact of Great Society programs was being felt , the poverty rate dropped to 12.6 percent , Califano says . -LRB- The poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent , the U.S. Census Bureau reported . -RRB- Califano , who calls Obama 's budget a logical extension of the Great Society , says Obama personally benefited from the Great Society `` crown jewel '' : the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , which ensured African American participation at the polls . `` My God , Obama would n't be president if Lyndon Johnson had n't passed that civil rights law , '' Califano said . `` He would not have gotten the votes to get elected . '' Robert Weisbrot , co-author of `` The Liberal Hour : Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s , '' says the Great Society also helped lay the foundation for the modern environmental movement with its passage of clean air and water laws . Read why Weisbrot says Obama ca n't create another Great Society `` We can find much to celebrate in those years in the 1960s when we see a burst of reform when the government is ready to face problems openly and decisively , '' Weisbrot said . There may be , however , one point of agreement for supporters and critics of Obama 's domestic agenda . It was expressed by Khachigian , Reagan 's former speechwriter . When asked whether he was miffed that some people were now comparing Obama to Reagan , he said his opposition to Obama 's budget was based on something deeper : fear . He says the nation could become a Failed Society if Obama 's approach does n't end a brutal recession . `` It 's not a matter of pride but of practicality , '' he said . `` If this does n't work , we 're all in deep doo-doo . ''