Richard Nixon's Welfare Reform Enacted

Japhy

Banned
In Nixon's first term in office he, along with many in his administration for various reasons ranging from political gain to a genuine urge to fight poverty proposed a series of reforms to the National Welfare system that would have completely re-organized them more then any moment since FDR had enacted Social Security. CHIP has been discussed on site before, but I'm more interested in what humorously was called FAP.

The Family Assistance Program was a complete reconstruction of the Welfare system, it would have replaced Social Security, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Unemployment Insurance and other programs with a National Guaranteed Income (That is, a National Minimal Wadge). To be given by the government to those whom generally received government aid already, and interestingly enough the Working Poor. The government would also subsidize career training and job education for those who were enrolled in the program, exemptions from that program would be reserved for the elderly and single mothers with children not yet in school.

FAP faced opposition of course from enough corners that Nixon eventually dropped it as a negative campaign issue. Unions feared for its impact on minimum wages, Democrats opposed its destruction of a lot of Great Society programs, Goldwater-Reagan conservatives opposed it obviously, and of course the various cogs of the welfare system saw it as an attempt to destroy their bureaucratic power and jobs.

The first question I guess should be how does it pass, then can the system survive Conservative Backlash and Democratic Opposition? Lastly if it can pass, and isn't destroyed in its first few years, would it be effective?
 
Well, it faced opposition from both ends of the spectrum, so Nixon dropped it and was just going to have the GMI instated but not replace the other extremely popular programs. This increased conservative opposition to it, and the liberals thought the GMI was too low to be effective.

I think it would be a great thing for the working class, and would accelerate the leaving of the blue collar from the Democratic Party into the Republicans. Reagan is going to strongly oppose it, which will cripple him in the future.
 
I quite like this idea. Given that Milton Friedman proposed something similar in the eighties, it may ot be impossible to get the Right on board with this, but it might help if NIxon has a boost of political capital to expend before doing so.
 
I quite like this idea. Given that Milton Friedman proposed something similar in the eighties, it may ot be impossible to get the Right on board with this, but it might help if NIxon has a boost of political capital to expend before doing so.

Friedman withdrew his support when Nixon decided not to scrap all the other welfare programs, so it's hard.
 
So we stop Nixon from deciding not to scrap those programs.
Congress, both Democratic and Republican, won't stand for that. Nixon doesn't need Friedman's support to make this happen, really. He just needs to increase the GMI to levels the Democrats find acceptable.
 
Congress, both Democratic and Republican, won't stand for that. Nixon doesn't need Friedman's support to make this happen, really. He just needs to increase the GMI to levels the Democrats find acceptable.

How much higher?
 
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