Days of Future Past

For Monday:

• David Greider, "The Education of David Stockman," The Atlantic, December 1981.

For Wednesday, Johnson ch. 9.

Will post Johnson appendices -- good study material for the final.

Next week, student hours: Mon and Tue 1-2, and by appointment.

Oral presentations:  need three volunteers for Monday.  

That 70s Show:  Current relevance of laws that passed under Ford and Carter

• Ethics in Government Act of 1978: This act established mandatory, public financial disclosure for high-level officials across all three government branches.
• Trump's disclosure
• Presidential Records Act of 1978: A reaction to Nixon's attempt to control his White House papers, this law established that presidential and vice-presidential records are the property of the U.S. government. Presidents must turn over all official records to the National Archives at the end of their term.  Trump did not.
• National Emergencies Act of 1976: After discovering that numerous old emergencies, Congress created a formal process for declaring and ending national emergencies. A declared emergency automatically ends after a year unless the president extends it.
• Proclamation 10886 – National Emergency at the Southern Border (Jan. 20, 2025)
• Executive Order 14156 – National Energy Emergency (Jan. 20, 2025)
• Executive Order 14157 – Designating Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (Jan. 20, 2025)
• Executive Order 14193 – Illicit Drug Emergency at the Northern Border (Feb. 1, 2025)
• Three Executive Orders – Tariff Emergencies on Mexico, Canada, and China (Feb. 2025)
• Executive Order 14144 – Cybersecurity Innovation Emergency (Jan. 16, 2025)
• Executive Order 14203 – Sanctions on the International Criminal Court (Feb. 6, 2025)
• Executive Order 14257 – Reciprocal Tariff Emergency (Apr. 2, 2025)
• Executive Order 14323 – Emergency Sanctions Against Brazil (Jul. 30, 2025)
• Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978: Reaction to revelations of illegal domestic spying, FISA created a special court to oversee and authorize surveillance activities against foreign powers and their agents in the U.S. It also established congressional oversight committees for intelligence activities.
•  ANTIFA and surveillance

• Inspector General Act of 1978: This act established independent offices of Inspectors General within major federal agencies to combat waste, fraud, and abuse. 
• Trump has fired 17 of them and and 75% of these posts are vacant.

And of course...Education

• Califano-- an LBJ guy in the Carter administration
• Was education doing well in the 1970s?
• Why did Carter propose a separate Education Department?
• (Hint)
• Why did Califano oppose it?
• What did he think was the "greatest danger"? (p. 279)

The special case of special ed.

About 1.8 million students with physical and mental disabilities were either completely excluded from the public school system, placed in institutions, or held in separate, inadequate classrooms.  A young Yale Law graduate investigates (start at 3:20)

    Legal precedents:

•  PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was a 1972 landmark lawsuit that established the right to a free public education for children with intellectual disabilities in Pennsylvania. 
• Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia (1972): broadened the right to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) to include all children with disabilities. The court also ruled that a lack of funding could not be used as an excuse to deny educational services.

1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (in 1990 becomes IDEA).
 As a condition of federal aid, schools must abide by these conditions:
• Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE): Schools cannot exclude students based on  disability.
• Individualized Education Program (IEP): Schools must evaluate a child's special needs and develop an individualized education program.
• Parental involvement: Mandates the involvement of a child's parents in the the IEP.
• Least Restrictive Environment (LRE): Requires that children with disabilities be educated alongside their non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate.

       Signing the bill, Ford offered prescient words of caution:

Unfortunately, this bill promises more than the Federal Government can deliver, and its good intentions could be thwarted by the many unwise provisions it contains. Everyone can agree with the objective stated in the title of this bill--educating all handicapped children in our Nation. The key question is whether the bill will really accomplish that objective.

Even the strongest supporters of this measure know as well as I that they are falsely raising the expectations of the groups affected by claiming authorization levels which are excessive and unrealistic.

        As Ford predicted, appropriations have never come close to the         authorized level. 

    Project 2025: 

"Most IDEA funding should be converted into a no-strings formula block grant targeted at students with disabilities and distributed  directly to local education agencies by Health and Human Service’s Administration for Community Living."

        Recent Layoffs and OSEP and OCR could have the same effect.

    

Watergate, Anti-Nixon Backlash, and Ford

• For next time, Califano excerpts on Canvas. (Posting this afternoon)
• Oral presentations
• A look back at the Erie Canal: technology, literal path dependency, federalism

The policy decisions of 1973 reflected a very different partisan landscape from today.  Those acts are very much in play.

January 22, 1973: Roe v. Wade (Johnson 272-273)

• Nixon appointee Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion.
• Nixon made no public comment.
• Not the lead story in the NYT
• Not yet an evangelical issue
• Not yet a partisan issue. Gallup Poll, Wash Post 8/25/1972:

The Watergate Window

• Nixon's political standing weakens
• Nixon drinks too much and checks out of the presidency
• The 1974 midterm; Reps lose 48 house seats and 4 Senate seats

The result was a break from the late 20th-century pattern, with the impetus coming less from the president than from Congress in reaction to the president.

War Powers Act

The House overrode the veto with a vote of 284 to 135. 

Vote to override: 198 Democrats and 86 Republicans.

Vote to sustain the veto: 32 Democrats and 103 Republicans.

Senate roll call vote

The Senate's vote was 75 to 18,

Vote to override: 50 Democrats and 25 Republicans.

Vote to sustain the veto: 3 Democrats and 15 Republicans.

 IN THE NEWS

Political finance and transparency

• Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) Amendments of 1974 (Johnson 270-271) -- which Ford signed -- created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to enforce campaign finance law, instituted public financing for presidential elections, and placed limits on campaign contributions and spending, though SCOTUS struck down spending limits.
• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Amendments of 1974: Overriding Ford's veto, Congress strengthened the 1967 FOIA by rolling back the executive branch's power to withhold documents and establishing specific time limits for government agencies to respond to requests. The amendments also gave courts the power to review classified documents to ensure they were properly designated.

Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974: 

• There was no budget until 1921 -- but it was an executive process, not a legislative one.
• What led Congress to pass a new law?  The unintended consequences of previous decisions.
• Stagflation limits fiscal choices (Lee).  Nixon's wage-price controls (Johnson 258) helped trigger inflation. Nixon himself admitted error: "What did America reap from its brief fling with economic controls?  The August 15, 1971 decision to impose them was politically necessary and immensely popular in the short run.  But in the long run I believe that it was wrong.  The piper must always be paid, and there was an unquestionably high price for tampering with the orthodox economic mechanisms."
• Deficits grow
• Entitlement spending grows
• Expansion of Social Security
• Creation of Medicare and Medicaid
• Nixon impounds funds.

Provisions of the 1974 Budget Act (SEE AN EXHAUSTIVE 2022 SENATE REPORT)

• Restricted the president's power to withhold or "impound" funds already appropriated by Congress by establishing procedures for the president to request congressional rescissions of appropriated funds.  Current issue
• Created permanent House and Senate Budget Committees to oversee the budget process and draft the annual budget resolution.
• Established the Congressional Budget Office to provide Congress with nonpartisan analysis, cost estimates, and budget projections to aid in decision-making.
• Created a process for Congress to adopt a concurrent resolution on the budget. This non-binding resolution sets overall levels for spending and revenue, which are then allocated to committees.
• Established a legislative process -- Reconciliation -- to allow Congress to make changes to spending and revenue laws to align them with the budget resolution targets.
• Since 1981, a vehicle for massive policy change.
• Changed the federal government's fiscal year from July 1 to October 1.

Nixon: Welfare, School Desegregation, Health

Research tips

For next time:

• Nooree Lee, "The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control  Act of 1974, Reconsidered,"  Harvard Law School Federal Budget Policy Seminar, Briefing paper 34, April 29, 2008.  COPY ALSO AVAILABLE ON CANVAS

Unanticipated consequences 

In 1935, members of Congress designed ADC as a modest, temporary way of keeping mothers -- mostly widows -- at home.  It remained a modest program through the 1950s. In 1962, the program -- now Aid to Families with Dependent Children -- became a way to rehabilitate the poor to join the workforce (Gillon, p. 60)

During the 1960s:

• CAPs and legal services programs helped the poor understand their rights (Gillon 68);
• Welfare rights activism took off;
• Court cases expanded rights for AFDC recipients;
• Anyone receiving cash assistance through AFDC was automatically enrolled in Medicaid, providing free health insurance for low-income parents and their children.

• The Family Assistance Plan
• NIT and Constructive Republican Alternative Programs (Moynihan 65)
• Nixon triangulated (Moynihan 68-69)
• Specifics of the Policy

• Guaranteed minimum income: The plan would have provided a federal minimum income floor for families with children, which was an innovative step toward a negative income tax.
• Expansion to the "working poor": Unlike AFDC, which primarily served unemployed families, the FAP was to provide benefits to the "working poor"—families with low-wage earners.
• Work requirements and incentives: The FAP included a work requirement for able-bodied recipients, but also financial incentives to work. Families could keep the first portion of their earnings without a reduction in benefits, with benefits decreasing gradually as income rose.
• National standardization: The FAP aimed to create a single, national standard for family assistance, addressing the wide variation in benefit levels across states under the AFDC system.

Despite passage in the House, the plan fails because of opposition from both sides. Conservatives see it as too expensive -- Nixon acknowledges that it would "cost more" at first -- while many liberals deem guaranteed income level to be too low. 

But...FAP leads to EITC

Moynihan gets into political hot water:  The 1965 Moynihan Report and  The "benign neglect" memo (1970, p. 7)

Desegregation

On the one hand, Nixon tries to appeal to white Southerners with rhetoric and efforts to appoint Souther justices.  On the other...

"You will be better advised to watch what we do instead of what we say"  -- John N. Mitchell 

Health Insurance

An unanticipated consequence of Medicare is that it fuels medical price inflation. 

Nixon proposes Obamacare 1.0.  Both involve employer-provided insurance -- path dependency.

Ted Kennedy later regrets sinking it.

Gary L. Freed, Anup Das, "Nixon or Obama: Who Is the Real Radical Liberal on Health Care?" Pediatrics 136 (August 2015)

Nixon National Health Strategy 19714	ACA 20103,6
National Health Insurance Partnership	Employer-Shared Responsibility
(1) Require employers to provide basic health insurance coverage for their employees, with the minimum requirement being to pay for hospital services, inpatient and outpatient physician services, full maternity care, well-infant care, immunizations, laboratory services, certain other medical expenses, and minimum of $50 000 in catastrophic coverage	(1) Employers with at least 50 full-time employees must offer health coverage that is affordable and provides a minimum level of benefits to at least 95% of their employees and dependents. None of their employees can receive a premium tax credit to help pay for coverage on a marketplace; if so, the employer must make a shared responsibility payment
(2) The costs for this would be shared by employers and employees, with a 35% ceiling on employee contribution for the first 2.5 years, and 25% after that	(2) Affordable coverage is defined as ≤9.5% of an employee’s annual household income
(3) Keep the range within which benefits can vary narrower than it has been, so competition between insurance companies will be more likely to compete on overall price of contracts	(3) A plan provides the minimum level of coverage if it covers at least 60% of the total allowed cost of benefits
	(4) Small employers are exempt from the coverage requirement and allow them to purchase insurance through the small business health options program
(4) Require the establishment of special insurance pools in each state that would offer insurance at reasonable group rates to people who did not qualify for other programs: the self-employed or poor-risk individuals
	(5) Small employers with up to 25 employees and average annual wages less than $50 000 are eligible to receive a tax credit
Medicaid	Medicaid Expansion
(1) Implement the Family Health Insurance Plan to meet the needs of poor families by eliminating the part of Medicaid that covers most welfare families. In its place, develop a new insurance plan that is fully financed and administered by the federal government. This federal health insurance plan would provide insurance to all poor families with children headed by self-employed or unemployed persons whose income is below a certain level. As family income increases, the cost-sharing would increase through a graduated schedule of premium charges, deductibles, and coinsurance payments	(1) Provide funding to states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover non–Medicare-eligible individuals younger than 65 with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty line
	(2) Guarantee all newly eligible individuals a benchmark insurance package that includes the minimum benefits for plans in the marketplace
	(3) Finance the coverage for the newly eligible with federal dollars until 2016, and then gradually decrease the federal contribution to 90% by 2020
	(4) Increase Medicaid payments in fee for service and managed care for primary care services to 100% of Medicare payment rates
Nixon Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan 19745
Employee Health Insurance
(1) Require all employers to offer all full-time employees health insurance, with employee contribution at 35% for 3 years, and then 25% subsequently
(2) Use federal subsidies to ease initial burden on employers
(3) Specific deductible, coinsurance, and out-of-pocket limits under this insurance plan
Assisted Health Insurance
(1) Replace state-run Medicaid by implementing a federally administered insurance plan to cover anyone not offered coverage under the Employee Health Insurance or Medicare
(2) Individuals could also get this if they cannot get coverage at reasonable rates from other options

Research Paper

Explain how any one of the federal policies that we discuss in the course affected one individual.  This paper should not simply tell one person's story. Instead, it should use that story as a case study of a larger phenomenon.  Was that person's experience typical or exceptional?  Did the policy have a different impact on people from different demographic backgrounds?  On balance, did the policy have the effect that its authors intended?

In addition to interviewing your subject, you must delve into primary sources (e.g., the laws, rules, or executive orders defining the policy) as well as scholarly and official analyses of the policy.

You may write on a different topic, but clear it with me in advance.

In the weeks ahead, you will make a very brief (5-minute) oral presentation on your paper.

Requirements

• Length: No more than six double-spaced pages (I will not read past page 6).
• Format: Word document only (no PDFs, no Google Docs).
• Citations: Chicago/Turabian style endnotes (not footnotes). Be precise: page numbers, dates, or document IDs. Endnotes do not count against the page limit.
• Style: Clear, polished writing counts. Grammar, spelling, diction, and punctuation all matter. Review Strunk & White and my writing lecture before you draft.
• AI:  It is appropriate to use AI to identify relevant articles, documents, and other sources. But misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism.
• Deadline: Friday, November 21, 11:59 PM on Canvas.  If Canvas gives you trouble, email me your Word file. I reserve the right to dock papers one grade point for one day's lateness, a full letter grade after that.

Air Midterm

 Relax. This “air midterm” does not count toward your grade, and you do not even turn it in. Instead, use it to appraise your own progress in the course. Try out this practice test, either in your head or on paper. If you flounder, then you should take more care with class sessions and assigned readings.

I. Identifications In a short paragraph each, explain the meaning and significance of the following items. What is fair game for an identification?

• Items that we have discussed in class or on the blog;
• Items that appear in bold or italics in the readings;
• Items that cover several pages in the readings.

Items

• Smoot-Hawley
• TVA
• Hill-Burton
• Sputnik
• Wilbur Mills
• AFDC
• OEO
• Mollie Orshansky
• The Little Rock crisis
• Humphrey's Executor

II. Short essays. In a couple of paragraphs each, answer the following.

• Define path dependency and give a specific example from this course.
• Briefly explain how a policy window opened in 1964.
• What happened to the National Industrial Recovery Act?

III. General Essays 

• How did the political setting for domestic public policy change between 1932 and 1952? Explain, with reference to the Clifford memo and other course readings.
• Describe and explain three effects of the Second World War on domestic public policy.

Bonus questions.  Very briefly identify the following:

• Richard Russell
• A. Philip Randolph
• Owen Roberts
• Sam Rayburn
• Ricci Ramos

Enter Nixon

Prelims:

• Research Assignment
• Air Midterm
• For Wednesday, read the Moynihan excerpt on Canvas (will post this afternoon)

Look for foreshadowing of current events...

1968

• March 31: LBJ announces he is not running for re-election.
• April 4: Martin Luther King Jr. assassination. Over the next week, riots in more than 100 cities nationwide leave 39 people dead, more than 2,600 injured and 21,000 arrested.
• April 11: In the wake of Baltimore riots, Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew summons civil rights leaders...to attack them.
• April 23: Students take over five buildings on Columbia University’s campus and briefly hold a dean hostage, calling for the university to cut its ties to military research. Protests are unpopular, especially among people who have not been to college (who account for most adults in 1968).  Fast-forward 47 years to 2025
• June 4: RFK assassination
• August 8, Nixon accepts GOP nomination:

Let us always respect, as I do, our courts and those who serve on them. But let us also recognize that some of our courts in their decisions have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in this country and we must act to restore that balance. Let those who have the responsibility to enforce our laws and our judges who have the responsibility to interpret them be dedicated to the great principles of civil rights. But let them also recognize that the first civil right of every American is to be free from domestic violence, and that right must be guaranteed in this country."

• August 28: At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, police and Illinois National Guardsmen go on a rampage, clubbing and tear-gassing hundreds of antiwar demonstrators, Roper sums up public opinion: "The country certainly appeared to sympathize with the police more than the protestors."

Two years later:  The Hard-Hat Riot and Nixon

Nixon and Law Enforcement

Violent crime rate per 100k population:

• Domestic Surveillance
• The War on Drugs (1971)
• Previously: Controlled Substances Act (1970): A comprehensive federal drug policy that categorized drugs based on their abuse potential and accepted medical use. Under this act, cannabis was in Schedule I, the most restrictive category,.
• Signs executive order creating DEA (1973)
• Ehrlichman, years later: "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
• But...grassroots support for tough drug policies

But in many ways, Nixon pursues liberal policies

Environment:  Issue-Attention and Policy Window

• “In a flat choice between smoke and jobs, we’re for jobs,” Nixon told Ehrlichman. “But just keep me out of trouble on environmental issues.”
• In 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire (again)
• In 1969, an oil spill devastated Santa Barbara beaches

Nixon the Green (Johnson 266-268)

• The National Environmental Policy Act (1969), which among other things required that all federal agencies produce environmental impact statements on the possible negative effects of any and all regulations. It also created the President’s Council on Environmental Quality.
• The Environmental Protection Agency (1970).
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, 1970). Proposed by Nixon “...for better protection of life and property from natural hazards…for a better understanding of the total environment…[and] for exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources…”
• The Clean Air Act (1970).
• Earth Week (1971). OK, something of a gimmick, but despite private eye-rolling, Nixon endorsed it to commemorate the first anniversary of Earth Day.
• The Clean Water Act (1972). If this is beginning to sound like the green legislation hall of fame, it’s not just you.
• The Endangered Species Act (1973): Even if this was all Nixon had achieved, he would rank among one of our greenest presidents.

Rights

• Support for ERA (Johnon 276-277)
• Signed Title IX
• Supported direct election of the president (Johnson 277-278)
• Supported Native American self-determination (thanks in part to Nixon's football coach)

Things Fall Apart; The Centre Cannot Hold

Questions on the Assignment?  writing advice

Research assignment (specs will be up by next class):  discuss how one of the policies that we discuss or read about in class has affected a specific individual.  

For next time: Johnson, ch. 8

Poverty and the Politics of Counting (a recurrent theme from now on)

From last time: KFK in WV; The Other America

Mollie Orshansky and the poverty measure

Discovery of poor people (Andrew p. 80) and The West Wing version

Why the dropoff in poverty post-WII?  Hint: old people

War on Poverty

The war metaphor

Causes of poverty?

• Social
• Economic

OEO and Job Corps -- callback to CCC

Problems

• Funding (guns v. butter)
• Community Action and clashes with local politics

Expansion of Food Stamps:  coalition politics

Head Start

ESEA (Johnson 238-239) -- 90% of schools eventually get federal money

Things fall apart

Mounting criticism of Great Society Programs (Andrew 87)

Riots (Andrew p. 81)

• Harlem (1964) -- Malcolm X
• Watts (1965)
• Newark and Detroit (1967)
• DC, Baltimore, Chicago (1968)

1968 assassinations:  MLK and RFK

In 1967, Miami police Chief Walter Headley said "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" during hearings about crime in his city,

Violent crime rate (per 100k)