AHC & WI: Nixon FAP (Family Assistance Plan)

How could the Family Assistance Plan, proposed by President Nixon in August 1969, have passed the Senate (after passing the House as OTL)? What would be the effects? Previous discussion:
Anyway, FAP, for those of you who aren't aware, was Richard Nixon's 1969 proposal for an annual guaranteed income. While passing through the House by over 100 votes in early 1970, it never got through the Senate thanks to an odd coalition of labor unions and entrenched interests in the bureaucracy(FAP would lead to a *bunch* of fired bureaucrats, which was part of what Nixon wanted. :D:D:D), liberals who were offended at the mandatory work requirements put on to placate conservatives(and who just didn't trust Nixon, period), and conservatives offended at the idea of a GAI at all, especially one that would cover the "working poor" like FAP. The Finance Committee was dominated by Dixiecrats-who, as the representatives of poor Southern states, would be most impacted by the change in social order. 52 percent of FAP's recipients would be Southern-and Western Republicans who didn't like welfare at all:

Now, about Family Assistance Plan (FAP), I don't want to overstate the case, but Earned Income Credit (EIC) has some major aspects of that. It's a successful government program in that it both largely does what it sets out to do and is reasonably popular. It gives extra money to working parents with low and modest income. Non-parents can get some money but only about a tenth of what parents (or older siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc) can get. EIC has also been duplicated in some other countries. an interesting example of a social program in which the U.S. has taken the lead.
 
It would represent a tax savings due to cutting out a lot of bureaucrats. It would also be more useful to recipients as they could tailor the spending to their individual situations. We might have greater social mobility because there would be no welfare cliffs.

It wouldn't be perfect, though. If everyone gets UBI, then the cost of goods and services will be higher. The net result could be that the poor are only marginally better off than they are in OTL.
 
It would have been very difficult to get FAP
through the Senate since in 1970 IOTL(which
was when then Senate formally took the matter up)it was controlled by the Demo-
crats who- surprise! surprise!- were not exactly eager to help out someone who had
been lambasting them since 1946.

But it still just MIGHT have gotten through if
it wasn't for Nixon himself. Once having in-
troduced FAP, he said little about it. He did
not try to twist arms, make speeches to
put pressure on Congress, & in general do
the things Obama did to get the ACA passed.
Republicans thus felt they could also oppose
FAP without incurring White House disapp-
roval.

Why did Nixon act this way toward his own
creation? Well, he was talked into it by White
House counciller(& later U.S. Senator)Daniel
Patrick Moynihan. But he soon had second
thoughts. So he decided to just sit back. If
FAP did pass Congress "he would then make
an honest effort to make the thing work. But---if the opposition proved too strong-
well, even better; for then he could have the
best of both worlds. He could claim credit
among his contemporaries and before the
bar of history for having introduced a land-
mark piece of social legislation, then turn
around and pin the blame on Congress for
depriving him of the opportunity to resolve
the 'welfare mess.'"*

All of which is, I think, a huge pity. FAP had
it's flaws- it would not have been cheap- yet
I think it's a much better plan than Bill Clinton's much touted "welfare reform".

*- See Dan Rather & Gary Paul Gates ex-
cellent book on Nixon's 1st term & the men
around him, THE PALACE GUARD, pp. 106-
122 of the 1975, Warner paperback edition.
Quote is on p. 121.
 
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From what I've read, there were plenty of Democrats who opposed it on principle more than ideological grounds, and a similar program may have passed if a Democrat was President in 1970.
 
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From what I've read, there were plenty of Democrats who opposed it on principle more than ideological grounds, and a similar program may have passed if a Democrat was President in 1970.
It would have been very difficult to get FAP through the Senate since in 1970 IOTL (which was when then Senate formally took the matter up)it was controlled by the Democrats who - surprise! surprise! - were not exactly eager to help out someone who had
been lambasting them since 1946.

But it still just MIGHT have gotten through if it wasn't for Nixon himself. Once having introduced FAP, he said little about it. He did not try to twist arms, make speeches to put pressure on Congress, & in general do the things Obama did to get the ACA passed. Republicans thus felt they could also oppose FAP without incurring White House disapproval.

Why did Nixon act this way toward his own creation? Well, he was talked into it by White House councilor (& later U.S. Senator) Daniel Patrick Moynihan. But he soon had second
thoughts. So he decided to just sit back. If FAP did pass Congress "he would then make an honest effort to make the thing work. But---if the opposition proved too strong-well, even better; for then he could have the best of both worlds. He could claim credit among his contemporaries and before the bar of history for having introduced a landmark piece of social legislation, then turn around and pin the blame on Congress for
depriving him of the opportunity to resolve the 'welfare mess.'"*

All of which is, I think, a huge pity. FAP had it's flaws - it would not have been cheap - yet I think it's a much better plan than Bill Clinton's much touted "welfare reform".

*- See Dan Rather & Gary Paul Gates excellent book on Nixon's 1st term & the men around him, THE PALACE GUARD, pp. 106-
122 of the 1975, Warner paperback edition. Quote is on p. 121.
I wonder if both parties would have been stronger outside forces holding, or threatening to hold, them accountable; I'm specifically picturing having MLK survive in 1968, but Nixon still wins.
 
It might have been effective. One of the carrots was to link it with the rehab act the Americans with disabilities act precursor. This would make work visable for people with disabilities. Fap would have eliminated the rehab brearaury.
 
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