The Nixon "Revolution": Promise and Performance

IT was not, as Attorney General John Mitchell had described it, "the most important document since they wrote the Constitution." Nor did it fit Richard Nixon's own advance billing as "the most comprehensive, the most far reaching, the most bold program in the domestic field ever presented to an American Congress." The President's State of the Union message was an uneven mixture. It centered on a truly radical plan to reverse the history of decades by reversing some of the flow of governmental money and power--by turning it back from Washington toward the states. It also included old proposals newly adorned and a drastic reshuffling of Cabinet departments. It was a major effort by the President to assume the role of domestic reformer and thus lay the groundwork for a re-election bid in 1972.

Nixon mentioned the aspirations of the young, the black and other minorities. In addition to his now familiar line about the "lift of a driving dream" (of which, incomprehensibly, the President seems very fond), he used some highly inspirational rhetoric. "We have gone through a long, dark night of the American spirit. But now that night is ending," he said at one point. Then, attempting to speak past Congress and align himself politically with a widespread feeling that runs from the radical right to the radical left, he made a curious, almost self-condemnatory statement. "Let's face it," he said. "Most Americans today are simply fed up with government at all levels. They will not --and should not--continue to tolerate the gap between promise and performance." To remedy that situation, Nixon pledged nothing less than "a new American revolution--a peaceful revolution in which power was turned back to the people." As so often with Nixon, it seemed like a considerable overstatement of an essentially sound intention.

Congress appeared in no hurry to man the barricades. Personally, the President was received with great warmth, though the speech--perhaps because of its vast advance publicity buildup--was the most coolly received State of the Union message in 20 years. Still, the Democratically controlled 92nd is the only Congress this President has, and he asked a great deal of it.

Which People? His most significant request was contained in his revenue-sharing proposals, which, if enacted, would do what the President claimed for them--"start power and resources flowing back from Washington to the states and communities"--and revise the fundamental relationship developed over the past 40 years between states and central Government.

Nixon proposed a net increase of 25% over the 1971 budget in the funds that go from Washington outward. A total of $16 billion was involved in his proposal; only $6 billion would be new money. The President asked that $5 billion be handed over without strings of any kind for states and localities to spend as they wish. He would create an additional pool of $11 billion, containing $1 billion in new money and $10 billion cannibalized from existing, narrowly aimed programs that require matching grants at the state or local level. From the pool, the states and cities would draw money, parceled out largely on the basis of population but without the need to put up any of their own revenue, for six broad areas: urban and rural development, education, transportation, job training and law enforcement. Big as it is, Nixon's request falls short of what the states and cities say they need and have been seeking. New York City's Mayor John Lindsay did not even wait for the specifics before calling the plan a "shell game"--because so much of it is merely relabeling of existing funds for localities. The Nixon plan will run into more serious criticism (see box, page 18). His rhetoric about returning power and money to "the people" raises the inevitable question: Just which people? But the plan starts an overdue national debate on an urgent problem.

Drastic Remedies. In his second major proposal, the President asked congressional approval to reduce the Cabinet departments to eight; only State, Treasury, Defense and Justice would remain intact, and four new departments would be created out of the remainder:

HUMAN RESOURCES would have at its core the current Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT would absorb much of what is now the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and the Agriculture Department. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT would take in parts of Commerce, Agriculture, Labor and Transportation.

NATURAL RESOURCES, focusing on the environment, would be fashioned around Interior, with other parts of Commerce and Agriculture included.

Nixon's Cabinet plans are the most drastic ever proposed for the Executive department, and stem largely from a study commission headed by Business Executive Roy L. Ash and refined by the White House staff. They have the same positive intent as those of the Hoover Commission in 1947: to make the proliferating federal bureaucracy more responsive to the presidential will by merging many small agencies under a few broad ones. Nixon said his purpose is to "match our structure to our purposes."

One serious question the plan raises is whether it would do that anywhere except on Government organization charts. HEW was itself a product of Hoover-inspired accretion, but its example hardly inspires confidence; many, in fact, have proposed that it be broken down into smaller segments to make the maze more manageable.

The President called again for passage of his Family Assistance Plan, designed to reform what he described accurately enough as the "monstrous, consuming outrage" that is the present welfare system. Nixon, aware that Democrats will propose broad health care legislation, told Congress he would present a new program under which "no American will be prevented from obtaining basic medical care by inability to pay," medical schools would be helped to graduate more doctors, health care would be available where it is needed, and cancer research would be speeded by a new $100,000,000 appropriation.

World of Words. Nixon avoided discussing the war, presumably leaving that topic for his forthcoming State of the World message. He said relatively little about the distressed economy, except to promise an "expansionary budget." Many in his audience feared that his proposals, however sound their aims, did not meet the demands of the moment. Observed TIME Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey: "Richard Nixon's world is made of words and documents and statements. Within this world, he has proposed a revolution. But it is a world which is not always real. It is part flimflam. His revolution has been floated out there on oratory. It has no roots in the realities of Congress, the labor unions, industry, or Middle America.

"That does not mean it should not be proposed, and yet it seems somehow to have been arrived at by people within the White House who have not sufficiently considered how to get this program, or even if it is what the country needs most. Perhaps such doubts will be proved wrong by the messages and the proposals that follow. Maybe they will be detailed, realistic, checked out with the men who must pass them and live with them. If that happens, there will be a really new Nixon."

The President has the right to expect patience and open minds until it is clear whether, in his own words, he can close the gap between promise and performance. Sooner or later, he will have to persuade the nation that his "revolution" is real and that it is just what is needed to solve America's many dilemmas. He is already planning a series of tours across the U.S. to help push his program. Only if he succeeds in convincing the country will he be able to move the largely hostile Congress with which he will be locked in maneuver and battle in the months to come.

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