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'New American Majority' and the Politics of Welfare in the Nixon Era
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Molly Michelmore
APSA 2005
Assistance Plan, and the plan’s eventual defeat, “strengthened Reagan’s hand as the
leader of the national conservative movement – a strength derived directly from his
involvement in the welfare policy area.”
78
In the spring of 1971, the president came to believe that FAP was a political
“loser.” Reagan’s California experiments had impressed Nixon as more politically
“sellable” than his own. Perhaps the final nail in FAP’s coffin came when new Treasury
Secretary John Connally, President Nixon’s most trusted political advisor, and the only
man Nixon saw as a potential successor, told his friend that the plan was a “loser.”
Connally advised the president that the FAP would undercut Nixon’s support among
white working class voters. However, the president could still use the issue of welfare
reform to his advantage by continuing the attack on the present system, but dropping any
plans to change it. “Labor are taxpayers,” Connally told the president, “Denounce
welfare. Praise blue-collars.”
79
In July, the president signaled to the Finance Committee
that it should not take up welfare reform any time soon. Under the pretense of focusing
first on important economic matters, the president abandoned decisively his welfare
reform plan in July 1971.
80
Just as his decision to endorse the FAP had been fundamentally political, so too
was his decision to abandon it. Nixon’s advisors – chief among them Pat Moynihan –
had once convinced the president that the FAP would attract new voters to the president
and cut into the Democratic Party’s monopoly on the “poverty issue.” However, only
two years later, that calculus had changed significantly. Nixon had come to believe that
the political benefits of the program had not materialized, but its liabilities had
78
Hoover, 250.
79
Connelly, JDE Notes, July 20 and July 21, 1971, NPMP, WHSF, SMOF, JDE, Box 5, File: #7.
80
JDE Notes, JDE Notes, July 1, 1971, NPMP, WHSF, SMOF, JDE, Box 5, File #7; DHEW Memorandum
to Dwight Chapin, August 30, 1971, NPMP, WHCF, Subject Files, DHEW, Executive, Box #3, File: Ex FG 23 8/1/71 – 9/30/1971; and Richardson, Memorandum for the President, September 9, 1971, NPMP, WHCF, Subject Files, DHEW, Box 3, File: Ex FG 23 8/1/71-9/30/71.
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| | Authors: Michelmore, Molly. |
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Molly Michelmore
APSA 2005
Assistance Plan, and the plan’s eventual defeat, “strengthened Reagan’s hand as the
leader of the national conservative movement – a strength derived directly from his
involvement in the welfare policy area.”
In the spring of 1971, the president came to believe that FAP was a political
“loser.” Reagan’s California experiments had impressed Nixon as more politically
“sellable” than his own. Perhaps the final nail in FAP’s coffin came when new Treasury
Secretary John Connally, President Nixon’s most trusted political advisor, and the only
man Nixon saw as a potential successor, told his friend that the plan was a “loser.”
Connally advised the president that the FAP would undercut Nixon’s support among
white working class voters. However, the president could still use the issue of welfare
reform to his advantage by continuing the attack on the present system, but dropping any
plans to change it. “Labor are taxpayers,” Connally told the president, “Denounce
welfare. Praise blue-collars.”
In July, the president signaled to the Finance Committee
that it should not take up welfare reform any time soon. Under the pretense of focusing
first on important economic matters, the president abandoned decisively his welfare
reform plan in July 1971.
Just as his decision to endorse the FAP had been fundamentally political, so too
was his decision to abandon it. Nixon’s advisors – chief among them Pat Moynihan –
had once convinced the president that the FAP would attract new voters to the president
and cut into the Democratic Party’s monopoly on the “poverty issue.” However, only
two years later, that calculus had changed significantly. Nixon had come to believe that
the political benefits of the program had not materialized, but its liabilities had
78
Hoover, 250.
79
Connelly, JDE Notes, July 20 and July 21, 1971, NPMP, WHSF, SMOF, JDE, Box 5, File: #7.
80
JDE Notes, JDE Notes, July 1, 1971, NPMP, WHSF, SMOF, JDE, Box 5, File #7; DHEW Memorandum
to Dwight Chapin, August 30, 1971, NPMP, WHCF, Subject Files, DHEW, Executive, Box #3, File: Ex
FG 23 8/1/71 – 9/30/1971; and Richardson, Memorandum for the President, September 9, 1971, NPMP,
WHCF, Subject Files, DHEW, Box 3, File: Ex FG 23 8/1/71-9/30/71.
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