The Significance of FAP

...It provides cash, frequently in large amounts, only to seThe Alternative June-September 1973 ected categories of individuals --the lisabled, the blind, the aged, and nothers, or unemployed fathers with de- )endent children...

...Perhaps it is best to point out what FAP, in fact, was not...

...Bella Abzug, watch out...

...Nor was it another episode in the long history of bureaucratic tinkering with the existing welfare system...

...After introductions were made, the young legislator told Senator Kerr of his deep respect and admiration for him...

...as head of the CIA...

...It breaks up homes," aid the President...

...He accused Richard Nixon of dictatorially conducting "foreign wars, both public and secret, of his own volition," of making "this Nation into the bully of the world," and of "moving us precipitously close to an authoritarian system...

...He cleared himself, however, in the eyes of his followers by explaining his vote: "I didn't want my office bugged...

...But more than that was involved...

...Showing the political prescience of his mentor, Abourezk led the fight against Nixon's "one man rule" by spearheading the opposition to Nixon's cabinet appointees...

...That some may find it less than fully comprehensive is surely more a tribute to the complexity of public life than a criticism of a serious book nearly six hundred pages in length, The work of a senior professor of government at Harvard, and an acknowledged man of letters, is not, however, to be judged solely by its ability to record daily events...

...Finally, FAP was not simply an extension of the admin istrative approach to welfare dependency, which seeks to reduce the number of recipients through a combination of social services, manpower programs, and inducements to work...

...The unsuspecting author might quickly find himself accused not just of missing the forest for all those trees, but also of overlooking many of the trees, In The Politics of a Guaranteed Income, Daniel P. Moynihan undertook to write about events which were not only controversial but also still front-page news while the manuscript was at the presses...

...I repeat: one of the better examples of Washington humor...

...In its original rsion, FAP plus food stamps would ve provided roughly half of the amount !hich Americans living in families with comes below the official poverty line eded to move above it...

...The Administration proposed to abolish his type of guaranteed income and re-flace it with one that would promote vhat it judged to be more desirable ob- ectives...

...Although in the Florida contest he again finished behind Wilbur Mills, it is reliably reported that his finish ahead of Mayor Yorty (.2 percent of the vote) propelled him into serious contention (one of the top five candidates) for the vice-presidential spot should Shirley Chisholm have captured the Democratic presidential nomination...

...And repeated at the beginning of the last chapter: "For those concerned to see the n~ttional gov-effective use of the resources potentially available to them when FAP was under consideration by the Executive and later when it was pending in Congress...

...It is difficult as a matter of theory to quarrel with Burns, but as a practical matter it was naive to assume that such guidelines were anything other than a masterplan for defeat...

...In a televised address on August 8, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Plan (FAP), a bold scheme to reform a welfare system charac-terized with striking unanimity as a "mess...

...It does this in a way hat permits inequalities in benefits for ~qually needy recipients...

...While these accomplishments are of little solace to the millions of people whose lives may have been im-measurably improved had FAP passed, perhaps it is the case that such a fund-amental change requires an exceptional degree of support, which few in politics can afford to provide for long...

...Any scholar who writes about recent history inevitably risks nearsightedness, Does the meaning of events in eighteenth century Britain seem so much clearer not least because we have lost track of so much of what actually occurred...

...Opening with a discussion of his modesty, he noted, according t6 the official text, that Hartke is The Alternative June-September 1973...

...It was the conservatives on the outside who saved the day --Human Events and the American Conservative Union, particu-larly --by waging a fight that at the outset seemed inevitably doomed to failure...

...But by A Better Example of Washington Humor Well, the Greatest Show On Earth re-convened in January and once again Washington is agog and atwitter over the performances of some of Congress' leading men...

...Most of all, it was not the guaranteed income which, as the President stated in his 1969 message, would have assured a minimum income "'regardless of how much (a person)was capable of earning, regardless of what his need was, regardless of whether or not he was willing to work...

...they might have done differently...

...The impact the proposal would have been pro ~unced in poorer regions of the country, articularly the states of the deep South...

...Not least of all general revenue-sharing, an intellectual companion-piece to FAP, was enacted by the Ninety-second Congress...

...It is as~rted most clearly on the first page: "An account of the history of the Family Assistance Plan . . . must hence be one of failure, The law was not enacted . .. Yet in an only slightly different perspective the notion of failure would appear inappropriate...

...ernment assume an innovative and responsible roleintheresolution of social conflict and inequity, the history of Family Assistance provides grounds for optimism...

...Iron- President, "in the great task of our peo- ically, having failed for seeming too ple," the elimination of poverty and de- large, it may someday pass for seeming pendency...

...Abourezk wasn't exactly swamped with praise for the speech --in fact, it was greeted with near complete silence...

...Even so, a proposal for major change came close enough to passing that many of those involved will continue to think -~e Alternative June-September 1973 and write --about the one or two things Assistance were enacted in that fashion...

...Under the guidance of Chairman Wilbur Mills and the senior Republican, John Byrnes, the Committee assessed, modified, but ultimately supported Family Assistance, agreeing with the Administration that it was not just the best but essentially the only real al-ternative to the existing system...

...Question: When is a middle-aged Lebanese a young Turk...

...it also tries to assess why Congress --and especially the liberal Senate-did not...

...In retrospect, however, it seems to me that the lesson is not to be found in the fact that we lost such a disproportionate number of battles, but that by our pres- ence we made it more difficult for con-servatives on the outside to win those that most needed winning...

...By the same token, hrough a combination of work re-uirements, penalities, and incentives, he Administration sought to insure that niy those who truly lacked resources ~ould fully benefit...

...Consequently the Senator finished just behind Sam Yorty and Wilbur Mills in the New Hampshire primary, garnering 2.7 percent of the vote...

...This time the subject was antihijacking searches at airports, and Hartke was agin 'em...

...When contemporary issues are also fraught with ideological and political controversy, the perils of scholarship are enhanced...

...Thinking to draw out some witty or charming stories on the subject, the freshman asked Kerr to favor him with some observations on the particular changes he had seen...

...To publicly suggest disagreement with the President's policies, to go outside the chain of command in an effort to influence presidential policy, to resort PERSPECTIVE: Leslie Lenkowsky The Sign "ift canoe In this month's edition oJ PERSPEC-TIVES we Jeature two differing images of the Family Assistance Plan, the Nixon White House, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Moynihan's book, The Politics of a Guaranteed Income (Random House, $10.00...

...These were real con- cerns of serious people, but lacking was the imagination, and perhaps after a time, the desire, to appreciate how Fam- ily Assistance responded to them...

...his new book offers a par-ticipant's account of what occurred...

...And L grows...

...In less than a month the pride of Rapid City had violated Senate proto- col, become the subject of a riddle, tilted at enough windmills to last most men a full six-year term, and established him- self as a new darling of the radical chic crowd...

...Part of the interest aroused by the presidential message stemmed from the perception that FAP was a landmark in social policy, "historical legislation" as The Economist put it...

...You may remember the Senator's brief campaign for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, during which he courageously decided to speak out on the central issue of American political life, which until then was being ducked by the other campaigners...

...As Professor Moynihan documents in considerable detail, however, it was pre- cisely its lack of a well-established identity that plagued Family Assistance throughout its three years on Capitol Hill...

...The only criticism I ever heard him make of Moynihan or his staff in the course of the Great Debate was that they were leaking --or so it ap-peared to him --information to the press in an effort to build up pressure on the President and compromise those who were opposed to FAP...

...In addition to their new pleasure of Abourezk-watching, Capitol Hillologists have bet:n cheered by Senator Vance Hartke's (D-Ind...

...When I would express my discourage- ment at the lack of influence we con-servatives had on the course of events at the White House, a colleague would assure me that we occasionally won a battle and thereby justified our presence...

...FAP would have provided a Lationwide floor under the income of ill families with children, thereby naking financial need the basic criterion or public assistance and reducing dis-barities among levels of payments...

...Yet FAP was also a little of each...

...Central to the Nixon Administration's approach to welfare was the understanding that a guaranteed income already exists...

...The debate that preceded the President's August message had engendered, in Professor Moynihan's words, "a relatively gen-nine, cooperative solution...

...It was in these terms that the resident understood Family Assistance, roposed it, and continues to support .9 (As recently as March 2, President ixon reaffirmed his belief that FAP as "the best solution to . . . the wel-ire mess...

...Only his equally cour-ageous mentor, George McGovern, heart- ily congratulated him, noting, with hi, usual brilliant political insight, that if Daniel Webster, Henry Cl,~y, John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, or Robert Taft were alive they would rush to Abourezk's side in the struggle...

...Neither those interested in reducing welfare rolls nor those con-cerned with increasing the incomes of the poor felt that the House-passed bill was acceptable...

...If we were not used, we were at least had --and most conspicuously by ourselves...

...The final tally: 81 to 1. Of his ordeal, Abourezk noted "I started to get a sinking feeling about the time they passed Hughes, McGovern, Nelson and Mondale...

...With the extension of the food-stamp program to over twelve mil- lion recipients, including many of the "working poor," one of the disparities between those eligible and those in-eligible for public assistance has been diminshed...

...It robs recipients of dignity...

...It will provide the first practical test of the Ad- ministration's new strategy for social policy...

...Professor Moynihan has never been one to leave such judgments understated and regardless of their overall assessment of the book, virtually all readers will take issue with one or another, or all, of the conclusions he draws, Yet the book also has another level of meaning which is a central concern not only in this but in much of Professor Moynihan's work...

...The Senate roll call began with Abourezk, who bravely and firmly cast his nay vote, only to be swamped by a sea of eighty-one ayes...

...In a speech purportedly about international trade, the silver-tongued sage wa.xed eloquent on the subject of airport neofascism...

...To still more people, its proposal (or its defeat) typifies the trustrations of American politics: why does the system always either defeat good ideas, or fail to produce them...

...The overriding consideration was still, as Professor Moynihan had written about the Ninety-first Congress, that "Lined up, the left and the right had, on this issue and at this time, a capacity to punish that made silence a rational response...

...During the three ears that FAP was before the Congress, he Administration continued to ~rengthen these provisions...

...Anybody who is anybody must be certified by var- ious capital wits, who use their keen sa- tiric ,sense and rapier-sharp intellects to hone such gems as the following (which is one of the better examples of Washington humor...

...Unfortunately, an unusually large number of the good people of New Hampshire and Florida failed to recognize that free false teeth for old folks was in fact the central issue of American political life...

...There, as in the White House, decision making was effectively centralized in a body that possessed both the technical and political competence to deal with a new proposal like FAP, the Committee on Ways and Means...

...It is the first major study of policy-making in the Nixon White House by an to deception, guile, or flattery, to do any- thing other than make a straightforward presentation of the facts upon which a presidential decision could be based was, in Burns' view, an act of disloyalty to the President...

...Kerr, a leader of the Senate's inner circle for years, was making some notes at his desk when approached by the freshman, who intended to introduce himself and, hopefully, to make a few ingratiating remarks...

...It is a long-standing tradition that freshmen must first put in a period of apprenticeship and homeworkdoing before daring to make their maiden speech...

...The Hoosier solon has never been one to retire and quietly lick his wounds, however...

...He concluded that Congress must retaliate by cutting off funds for the White House staff and for high executive branch officials, and pledged himself to "re-creating a viable democracy...

...Leslie Lenkowsky, who wrote the following essay, is completing his doctoral thesis on welJare at Harvard University...

...Of the incoming congres-sional crop, Senator James Abourezk (D-S.I...

...Earlier in the year, many of the "workfare" provisions of FAP were enacted as an amendment to another bill...

...Kerr nodded a perfunctory acknowledgment of this flattery and went back to his notes...

...Its admin-stration is chaotic, lending itself to Lbuse by both client and official...

...His address is fascinating and should be examined by students of either rhetoric or politics...

...And flthough no one knew for sure, a system ntended to be generous and com-)assionate may have had quite the ,pposite effect...

...Abourezk had little time for such niceties however, as he noted in his maiden speech, and proceeded to unburden himself of some memorable political troths...

...For his exploits Abourezk has been the beginning of 1969, the consequences of these efforts were so dispiriting as to call into question the ability of gov- ernment itself...

...Part of the problem was simply conceptual: FAP was hard to understand and the Administration's early testimony was not especially helpful...

...The issue was always close: even in the final days a motion which would have cleared the way for a Senate vote on FAP failed, forty-one to forty-four...

...Neither these terms is precise, but their leanings are understood...

...The Social Security Amend-ments of 1972, passed in October, place a Federal floor under the incomes of the aged, disabled, and blind...

...Beyond the technical soph- :tication essential for its proposal, the gnificance of FAP as a policy lies in s fusion of this conservative interest i social stability with the liberal )ncern for social meliorism...

...A member of the President's cabinet, Dr...

...step...

...Secretary...

...And while AP would cost more in the short-run ban the existing system, and extend federal assistance to more people, it was esigned, in the President's words, "to )rrect the condition (welfare) deals ith and thus to lessen the long-range arden and cost...

...That FAP was not enacted is probably less important than that its history reveals its potential to have been enacted...

...The freshman, hoping to brighten up the conversation, observed that Senator Kerr must have seen many changes in the Senate during his distinguished years of service --to which Kerr briefly nodded his assent...

...For that reason its very proposal was no small achievement...

...Election-year politics complicated mat-ters, but did not fundamentally change the fact that Family Assistance had few strong friends and many vocal op-ponents...

...most likely they were a liability, It was Arthur Burns' conviction that the first duty of a member of the White House staff was loyalty to the President...

...None of these questions is without merit, but all betray an inadequate appreciation of the significance of the Family Assistance Plan and the lessons to be drawn from its history...

...for a man of conserva- tive ideas and a modest dose of self-respect, it was virtually impossible, Of those who made an effort to stop FAP, only Burns, Anderson, and Vice President Agnew were insiders, and only Anderson could reasonably be identified with the organized conservative move-ment...

...Abourezk seemed to relent in his fight to restore (in his own words) a "'profoundly conservative" form of government when he voted to confirm Nixonnominee James Sehlesinger, Jr...

...It often penalizes vork...

...Notwithstanding his own vigorous advocacy of its passage, for the author, FAP, even in defeat, is still a kind of success...

...More- Beyond its substantive content, FAP also over, the events of the last three years had a symbolic aspect: it was a grand have established Family Assistance idea, a "first long step," said the as an item on the national agenda...

...The high spot of the battle came when Elliot Richardson was to be confirmed as Defense (ugh...

...Moynihan was one of the key figures in the events leading to the proposal of FAP and had a favorable position for following its course in the Congress...

...This, then, was a Jaranteed incon~e designed to stabilize i activity of government which had ~emed beyond control...

...If liberal reform might be said to have exhausted itself by the end of the sixties, then con- servative social policy, it could fairly be argued, hardly existed, at least not in the form of ideas tested in practice...

...It was, of course, both...

...Twice the rest of the House of Representatives agreed, passing FAP by comfortable margins...

...In the most significant struggle to occur in the Nixon Administration, the White House conservatives were at least use-less...

...Those with valid credentials as conservative activists were removed from, if not above, the battle...

...At a time when staleness in policy seemed as probable as stalemate in pol- itics, the advent of Family Assistance revealed an imaginative new direction, one that was neither liberal nor con-servative, but nonetheless purposeful...

...Moynihan knew as Burns did not that policymakers are moved by many things and least of all by cold facts, Whether for reasons such as those which influenced Burns, or otherwise, the conservatives in the White House failed in any significant way to make of FAP "insider" and will undoubtedly provide much material for future students of the period...

...This may be its en-during significance and why, to the author of The Politics of a Guaranteed Income, it can be considered a success...

...Those acquainted with some of Professor Moynihan's writings while he was in the White House may perceive this conclusion as another effort by a public servant to look at the benign side of an otherwise regrettable situation...

...The Politics of a Guaranteed Income attempts to explain why a conservative president came to make such a proposal the most important item in his agenda for domestic policy...

...The Nixon Administration recognized this...

...Before the end of the Ninety-second Congress, major new legislation for both welfare reform and income maintenance, chiefly favoring the elderly, had been enacted...

...Yet what sort of an up-~aval originates ia a plan to stem the h'eat of growing welfare dependency the social order...

...But disagreement on the new direction set out by the President per-sisted in the Senate up to adjournment...

...so with characteristic zeal he bounced back again, bringing yet another vital issue before the court of public opinion...

...rewarded with one of Washington's most highly prized commodities: he has be-come the object of a riddle...

...In the Senate, however, legislative consideration essentially began anew...

...It acluded provisions to insure that all re- cipients would be treated alike --for xample by specifying which of them ~re to be referred for job-training or ther services...

...promises to provide the most drama...

...Compounding this was the dominance on the Senate Finance Committee (which handled the leg-islation) of those who represented areas where Family Assistance would have the most profound --and most uncertain --effects...

...He repeatedly refused to undergo searches by airline security personnel before air flights, and attempted to alert the American people to this new and growing menace...

...a result of the President's initiative, rote a Fortune reporter, there was a looming money revolution" in the small ~wns of Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, nd elsewhere...

...In truth, it was not a first so small...

...j To conclude that FAP must have been L)orly conceived or reflected the temp- orary ascendance of a leftish palace clique would he mistaken...

...If the states of the deep South stood to gain immensely from FAP, they were also the ones whose ec- onomies would be most exposed to any disruptions in the labor market that the plan might prompt...

...Others will wonder what all the celebration is about: was not FAP really a rather pedestrian idea, or alternatively, an irresponsible one...

...Although some members of the Ad-ministration, such as the Vice President, foresaw this difficulty, it did not arise immediately, largely due to the personnel and institutional arrangements of the House of Representatives...

...Nonetheless, many of the objectives outlined in the President's message were achieved...

...This objective guides the interpretive framework of the book, affecting in the usual ways the selection and emphasis of events in the narrative...

...Other administrations had adWelcome though it might be, it would dressed themselves to the same ends almost be unfortunate if Family with as much hope and energy...

...return to the political wars...

...This custom is best illustrated by the now-famous story concerning the late Senator Robert Kerr of Oklahoma and a nameless freshman senator...

...Answer: When he's James Abourezk...

...Was it a conservative program of welfare reform or a liberal one of income redistribution...

...Congress had barely convened when Abourezk (AhCbor-esk) broke the hallowed rule that freshmen should be seen and not heard...

...Without either looking up from his work or pausing a second, Kerr is reputed to have pointedly replied "Freshmen didn't used to be so talkative...

...Throughout the country, wel- fare rolls have stopped growing and are even decreasing in places, quite possibly assisted by improvements in ad-ministrative practices...

...The New Hampshire setback sapped some of the momentum from the Hartke juggernaut, and he fin- ished tenth i~1 the Florida primary, with three-tenths of a percent of the popular vote...

...But once the issue was entered on those terms, Family Assistance was lost, for it could be readily shown that FAP could never offer enough of either...