1971 Richard Nixon - Dismantling the Great Society

By 1968, there was a conservative backlash against Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society' program. President Nixon set out to dismantle what many viewed as costly failures of the program. He began with Welfare reform. Through 1971, Nixon was pushing his Family Assistance Program (FAP). The FAP called for a replacement of the highly bureaucratic programs such as Food Stamps and medicaid with direct cash payments to those in need. All poor would qualify for the aid, but all recipients (except mothers of young children) were required to work or take job training. The plan met much criticism. Labor saw the proposal as a threat to the minimum wage, and conservatives disliked the idea of a guaranteed annual income for people who didn't work. In 1972 facing re-election, Richard Nixon let the FAP proposal expire.

In Nixon's 1971 State of the Union Address he called for welfare reform as his most important goal.

"The most important is welfare reform. The present welfare system has become a monstrous, consuming outrage--an outrage against the community, against the taxpayer, and particularly against the children it is supposed to help.

We may honestly disagree, as we do, on what to do about it. But we can all agree that we must meet the challenge, not by pouring more money into a bad program, but by abolishing the present welfare system and adopting a new one.

So let us place a floor under the income of every family with children in America-and without those demeaning, soul-stifling affronts to human dignity that so blight the lives of welfare children today. But let us also establish an effective work incentive and an effective work requirement.

Let us provide the means by which more can help themselves. This shall be our goal.

Let us generously help those who are not able to help themselves. But let us stop helping those who are able to help themselves but refuse to do so."

LBJ was never really able to make much headway with his domestic programs due to the Vietnam war.  Funds for the war on poverty were diverted to the war in Vietnam, and by 1968 LBJ was attacked by both conservatives and anti-war liberals. His hope of leaving a lasting legacy of domestic programs was quickly crumbling. Nixon put the nail in the coffin.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/nixon-domestic/
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3110
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