On Health, Safety, & Equal Rights:
"In retrospect, some would call the Nixon presidency the 'last liberal administration.' This was not only because of the imposition of economic controls. It also carried out a great expansion of regulation into new areas, launching affirmative action and establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "Probably more new regulation was imposed on the economy during the Nixon administration than in any other presidency since the New Deal," Herbert Stein ruefully observed" (Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, _The Commanding Heights_, 1997, pp. 60-64, <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_nixongold.html>).
"While Clinton's Colombia Plan was being formulated, senior administration officials discussed a proposal by the Office of Budget and Management to take $100 million from the $1.3 billion then planned for Colombia, to be used for treatment of U.S. addicts. There was near-unanimous opposition, particularly from "drug czar" Barry McCaffrey, and the proposal was dropped. In contrast, when Richard Nixon -- in many respects the last liberal president -- declared a drug war in 1971, two-thirds of the funding went to treatment, which reached record numbers of addicts; there was a sharp drop in drug-related arrests and number of federal prison inmates, as well as crime rates" (Noam Chomsky, "The Colombia Plan: April 2000," _Z Magazine_, June 2000, <http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200006--.htm>).
Cf. J. Brooks Flippen, _Nixon and the Environment_ (2000): <http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=4275>.
On the Guaranteed Annual Income, COLA, etc.:
***** If our leaders were determined, America could eliminate poverty within a decade. We almost made it a few years ago under a plan proposed by a conservative Republican president. Richard Nixon introduced a guaranteed annual income as a floor against poverty. Fearing that most Americans viewed a guaranteed annual income as a reward for the idle and promiscuous, the plan was euphemistically called the Family Assistance Plan or FAP. When the bill was introduced in the House, one of its sponsors was then Congressman George Bush.
Nixon recognized that only a radical change in policy could control the growth of AFDC, that cash supplements were more efficient in the long run than sustaining a welfare bureaucracy, and that including assistance to poor working fathers kept families together. Nixon also recognized that a liberal policy co-opted by a conservative gained credibility.
The Family Assistance Plan twice made it through the House of Representatives, but it died in the Senate. Northern liberals argued that the plan failed to help welfare mothers in the North and West. Organized labor feared a guaranteed income threatened the minimum wage and argued that it would subsidize sweatshop employers. Southern conservatives saw the guaranteed income as forcing up wages and giving new political power to African-Americans. The welfare bureaucracy opposed FAP out of self-interest and many Democrats hated the idea that Republicans should get credit for a basic reform.
(Tom Rosenberg, August 31, 2000, <http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/3579>) *****
***** 12/30/69 -- President Nixon signed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. Monthly cash benefits were provided coal miners who became totally disabled because of Black Lung disease, and for their dependents and survivors.
07/01/72 -- President Nixon signed into law P.L. 92-336 which authorized a 20% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), effective 9/92, and established the procedures for issuing automatic annual COLAs beginning in 1975.
10/30/72 -- Social Security Amendments of 1972 signed into law by President Nixon -- creating the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
<http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/briefhistory.html> *****
***** Nixon's Statements on Social Security
1. SPECIAL MESSAGE TO THE CONGRESS ON SOCIAL SECURITY -- SEPTEMBER 25, 1969
. . . I propose an across-the-board increase of 10% in Social Security benefits, effective with checks mailed in April 1970, to make up for increases in the cost of living.
I propose that future benefits in the Social Security system be automatically adjusted to account for increases in the cost of living.
I propose an increase from $1680 to $1800 in the amount beneficiaries can earn annually without reduction of their benefits, effective January 1, 1971.
I propose to eliminate the one-dollar-for-one-dollar reduction in benefits for income earned in excess of $2880 a year and replace it by a one dollar reduction in benefits for every two dollars earned, which now applies at earnings levels between $1680 and $2880, also effective January 1, 1971.
I propose to increase the contribution and benefit base from $7800 to $9000, beginning in 1972, to strengthen the system, to help keep future benefits to the individual related to the growth of his wages, and to meet part of the cost of the improved program. From then on, the base will automatically be adjusted to reflect wage increases. . . .
The proposed benefit increases will raise the income of more than 25 million persons who will be on the Social Security rolls in April, 1970. Total budget outlays for the first full calendar year in which the increase is effective will be approximately $3 billion. . . .
Benefits will be adjusted automatically to reflect increases in the cost of living. The uncertainty of adjustment under present laws and the delay often encountered when the needs are already apparent is unnecessarily harsh to those who must depend on Social Security benefits to live.
Benefits that automatically increase with rising living costs can be funded without increasing Social Security tax rates so long as the amount of earnings subject to tax reflects the rising level of wages. Therefore, I propose that the wage base be automatically adjusted so that it corresponds to increases in earnings levels.
These automatic adjustments are interrelated and should be enacted as a package. Taken together they will depoliticize, to a certain extent, the Social Security system and give a greater stability to what has become a cornerstone of our society's social insurance system. . . .
Richard Nixon The White House September 25, 1969 . . .
4. Statement About Approval of the Welfare Reform and Social Security Bill by the House Committee on Ways and Means--May 18, 1971. . . .
--A basic floor of dignity for every low-income family with children. It establishes a payment standard of $2,400 for a family of four, while eliminating the cumbersome and restrictive food stamp program, replacing it with cash payments. . . .
<http://www.ssa.gov/history/nixstm> *****
Cf. "Statement About Approval of the Family Assistance Act of 1970 by the House Ways and Means Committee," March 5, 1970, <http://www.nixonfoundation.org/Research_Center/1970_pdf_files\1970_0071.pdf>; and "Statement About House Approval of the Family Assistance Act of 1970," April 16, 1970, <http://www.nixonfoundation.org/Research_Center/1970_pdf_files\1970_0118.pdf>.
The Nixon administration's record in comparison to all subsequent administrations' demonstrates that what we can get depends on the level of social movement mobilization and economic conditions (the rate of profit, etc.). -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>