When Nixon became president in 1969, the major economic problem he faced was inflation. This was caused primarily by the heavy military expenditures and easy-money policies of the Johnson administration. Nixon cut federal spending and balanced the 1969 budget, while the Federal Reserve Board forced up interest rates to slow the expansion of the money supply. When prices continued to rise, uneasiness mounted and labor unions demanded large wage increases.
In 1970 Congress passed a law giving the president power to regulate prices and wages. Nixon originally opposed this legislation, but in the summer of 1971 he changed his mind and announced a ninety-day price and wage freeze. Then he set up a pay board and a price commission with authority to limit wage and price increases when the freeze ended. These controls did not check inflation completely— and they angered union leaders, who felt that labor was being shortchanged—but they did slow the upward spiral.
In handling other domestic issues, the president was less firm. Like President Kennedy he was primarily interested in foreign affairs. He supported a bold plan for a “minimum income” for poor families, but dropped it when it alarmed his conservative supporters and got nowhere in Congress. But when a groundswell of public support for conserving natural resources and checking pollution led Congress to pass bills creating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Clean Air Act of 1970, he signed them cheerfully.
Primarily he was concerned with his own political standing. Hoping to strengthen the Republican party in the South, he checked further federal efforts to force school desegregation on reluctant local districts, and he set out to add what he called “strict constructionists” to the Supreme Court, which he believed had swung too far to the left in such areas as race relations and the rights of persons accused of committing crimes. He also proposed mostly conservatives to fill vacancies in the Supreme Court.
After his triumphant reelection and the withdrawal of the last American troops from Vietnam, Nixon resolved to change the direction in which the nation had been moving for decades. He announced that he intended to reduce the interference of the federal government in the affairs of individuals. People should be more self-reliant, he said, and he denounced what he called “permissiveness.” Excessive concern for the interests of blacks and other minorities must end. Criminals should be punished “without pity.” No person or group should be coddled by the state.
These aims brought Nixon into conflict with liberals in both parties, with the leaders of minority groups, and with those alarmed by the increasing power of the executive. The conflict came to a head over the president’s anti-inflation policy. After his second inauguration he ended price and wage controls and called for voluntary “restraints.” This approach did not work. Prices soared in the most rapid inflation since the Korean War. In an effort to check the rise, Nixon set a rigid limit on federal expenditures. To keep within the limit, he cut back or abolished a
The Clean Air Act of 1970 mandated reductions in air pollution, arguably the most important environmental legislation passed by the United States during the twentieth century.
Large number of social welfare programs and reduced federal grants in support of science and education. He even impounded (refused to spend) funds already appropriated by Congress for purposes of which he disapproved.
The impoundment created a furor on Capitol Hill, but when Congress failed to override his vetoes of bills challenging this policy, it appeared that Nixon was in total command. The White House staff, headed by H. R. Haldeman (called “the Prussian”) and John Ehrlichman, dominated the Washington bureaucracy and dealt with legislators as though they were lackeys. Critics began to grumble about a new “imperial presidency.” No one seemed capable of checking Nixon.
World History
