Richard Nixon Presidential Library: ‘New Federalism: Returning Power to The People’

Source:Richard Nixon Presidential Library- President Richard Nixon's OMB Director Richard Nathan.

Source:The New Democrat

“August 08, 2011: Nixon administration officials discuss RN’s national policy to transfer power from the federal government to state and local governments.

Location: Richard Nixon Presidential Library

Participants:

Edwin Harper, Nixon White House Domestic Council Assistant Director;

James Falk, Nixon White House Domesctic Council Associate Director;

Richard Nathan, Assistant Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Nixon;

Shirley Anne Warshaw (moderator), Professor of Political Science, Gettysburg College.

Organized by Nixon White House Associate Director Geoffrey C. Shepard, the forums are co-sponsored by the National Archives and the Richard Nixon Foundation.”

From the Richard Nixon Presidential Library 

"New Federalism Interviews: James Falk" 

Source:Richard Nixon Foundation- interviewing James Falk.

From the Richard Nixon Foundation

"The New Federalism investigates whether returning a variety of regulatory and police powers back to the states will yield better government. It poses the provocative question, Can the states be trusted? and emerges with a qualified yes. This book should be an invaluable resource to federal and state policymakers alike." 

Source:Amazon- The New Federalism.

From Amazon

I think to understand what Richard Nixon’s vision for what they called the New Federalism, you have to understand the political climate of the 1960s, the 1970s, and even the 1950s, when Richard Nixon was Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President. And then you also have to understand what the Republican Party was like back then as well. Otherwise the New Federalism, the concept of a public safety net coming from a Republican President, will look very alien and foreign to you. It might look like a hip-hopper at a Mississippi country music festival, or something so out of place like that.

During the 1960s, we had President John F. Kennedy’s vision for the New Frontier, where he wanted to use the Federal Government to help people in need, help themselves. Then we had President Lyndon’s B Johnson’s Great Society, where they believed so American  should have to go without and that it was the job of the Federal Government to make sure that everyone is taken care of.

When Richard Nixon becomes President in January, 1969, he didn’t come back to Washington to destroy the New Deal or Great Society. He didn’t have the power to do that with a Democratic Congress (House and Senate) with solid majorities in it. And he didn’t thinking eliminating those programs would be good politically or on policy grounds either. But he believed as a Republican that the country needed a choice and not have a Republican President that governs as a Progressive Democrat.

This might sound hard to believe with Watergate, the plumbers and all the constitutional civil liberty violations that the Nixon White House was guilty of in the early 1970s. But ideologically, Richard Nixon was a Progressive Republican. He had a lot more in common with Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, then he ever had in common with Robert Taft, or Barry Goldwater, or Ronald Reagan. Nixon believed in progress and using government to help create that progress. But he wasn’t a Socialist either or even a Democratic Socialist.

The New Federalism is the Progressive Republican vision of the public safety net in America, where you would have public programs available for people who truly need them, but they would be designed to move people out of poverty, with educational and work requirements, as well as time limits on then. And they would be run by the state and local government’s. But by the Feds, unlike with the Great Society and New Deal. 

President Gerald R. Ford: State of The Union Address (January 12, 1977)

Source:James Miller Center- President Gerald R. Ford (Republican, Michigan) 38th POTUS (1974-77)

Source:The New Democrat 

"President Ford gives his final State of the Union Address, bidding his farewell to Congress and describing the strength of the United States and what must be done to make further improvements.

From the James Miller Center 

"The initials synonymous with the Republican Party—“GOP”—stand for “grand old party.” As early as the 1870s, politicians and newspapers began to refer to the Republican Party as both the “grand old party” and the “gallant old party” to emphasize its role in preserving the Union during the Civil War. The Republican Party of Minnesota, for instance, adopted a platform in 1874 that it said “guarantees that the grand old party that saved the country is still true to the principles that gave it birth.” 

In spite of its nickname, though, the “grand old party” was only a mere teenager in the early 1870s since the Republican Party had been formed in 1854 by former Whig Party members to oppose the expansion of slavery into western territories." 

Source:History- and The Grand Ole Party.

From History 

I put that Grand Ole Party quote and link in this piece for an excellent reason: The Grand Ole Party is Gerald Ford's party. His job was to restore and preserve, or conserve (if you prefer) confidence in the American form of government and our constitution, after the Watergate debacle of 1972-73, that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. And he did a great job of doing just that.

There have been times in American history when if America didn't have a certain person as President, it wouldn't been clear if they could've survived as a country gotten through that crisis. I'm thinking of: 

Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War

Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II 

Lyndon Johnson during the civil rights movement

And yes, Gerald R. Ford during the post-Watergate period during the mid-1970s

Now, maybe the country would've survived during those periods with someone else as President, but we would've been a lot worst off. 

Of course as a Conservative Republican, Gerry Ford was partisan. He was House Minority for almost 9 years, Vice President and then President of the United States and Leader of the Republican Party. But he wasn't President as a partisan. He knew the situation that he inherited and knew what his job was, which was to restore order and confidence in the American system and form of government. 

There are plenty of people who think that Gerry Ford was a great man and a good President. I'm a Democrat, but I'm one of those people. But almost no one (Democrat or Republican) thinks that Gerry Ford was a bad man. And we're talking about someone who served in the U.S. Government for over 30 years, if you count his military service during World War II.  

This post was updated June 14, 2023.

Sports Channel New York: MLB 1987- 5-16- New York Yankees @ Seattle Mariners: Full Game

Source:Sports Channel New York- covering the Yankees & Mariners from 1987.

Source:The New Democrat

“It’s a SportsChannel feed with Spencer Ross and Ken Harrelson, May 16, 1987, between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners.”

From This is Where You Find Baseball

An interesting matchup with the Yankees of the late 1980s, who were still contenders, but like the Yankees of the mid-1980s, they just contended and didn’t manage to win the AL East back then and until 1994.

Pre-1995, the only way you make the MLB Playoffs is to win your division. So finishing second or third, even if you just finish a few games out of first, was not good enough to make the AL Playoffs or NL Playoffs. So the greatest franchise in MLB missed the playoffs for the final eight seasons of the 1980s, because they couldn’t win their division. But that is a topic for a future post as far as why they couldn’t win their division.

The Mariners on the other hand, we’re just starting to become fairly competitive at this point. They didn’t have their first winning season until the early 1990s, but could no longer be counted on to finish dead last in the AL West. Because they were good enough to now beat good teams.

It wasn’t until the 1990s that the Mariners actually became very good and making the AL Playoffs and winning the AL West. Because they finally put teams together that were built for the Kingdom. Which was a great hitters stadium, where the ball flied and where dimensions were fairly short. And where they had more ground ball pitchers, with very little foul territory.

Inside Out TV: '47 Million Americans on Food Stamps'

Source:Inside Out TV- from the Inside Out piece on Food Stamps.

"There are currently 47 million Americans who turn to food stamps to help make ends meet. The program was just cut by $5 billion on November 1 and more cuts are expected. 

November 1st marked the end of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was passed in 2009 to temporarily expand the SNAP or food stamp program in the US following the economic recession." 

From Inside Out TV

If you want to know how bad the Great Recession was and still is to a certain extent: it's officially over, but we haven't fully recovered from it. Middle class people as of 2008 are now living in poverty, collecting things like long-term Unemployment Insurance, Medicaid, perhaps seeking early retirement income from Social Security, Food Assistance, some of these people have gone back to work but are making maybe half of what they use to, or not even that.