On Jun 24, 2008, at 10:55 AM, sawicky at verizon.net wrote, with an almost poetic concept of linespacing:
> The block grant movement was a Nixon device to transition Federal
> spending
> away
>
> from uppity community action types towards state and local governments
> (sweetening
>
> the pot in the process). So you could argue it was a concession to
> social
> movements
>
> and a Democrat-dominated Congress.
And, according to Wikipedia (for what that's worth): "The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) was enacted in 1974 by president Gerald Ford through the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 and took effect in January 1975. It had bipartisan support, reportedly because liberal legislators shared its goal of extinguishing poverty and "urban blight" and conservative legislators appreciated the control it placed in the hands of private investors and the reduction it made in the role of the government. Cities automatically qualified for the grant if they met the requirements, but were required to submit allocation reports (showing to whom and where the money was spent) and quarterly reports to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD's records were disputed, and there were complaints that Southern cities, in particular, spent grant money in affluent neighborhoods. CDBG funds were distributed in such a way as to generate a bias against older (declining) frostbelt cities, cities that were losing population to the sunbelt."