Throughout The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon
(copyright 1972, 1973), Jerry Voorhis is quite critical of President
Richard Nixon's revenue-sharing policies, in which the federal
government would share money with the state and local governments so
that they could develop their own programs to address domestic
problems. Nixon's policy here probably coincided with a conservative
view that problems should be solved by those who are closer to the
people, namely, the state and local governments.
What
are Voorhis' problems with President Nixon's policy of revenue sharing,
or relying on state initiative to redress domestic problems in
general? Here are some of them:
1. I vaguely recall Voorhis
saying that the Nixon Administration did not necessarily allocate money
on the basis of states' need. The state that needs more money should
get more than a state that doesn't need as much, but I somewhat
recollect that Voorhis argued that President Nixon did not consistently
follow this policy. (But I could be mistaken on this.)
2.
The federal government under President Nixon's policy does not give the
states enough money to address their problems adequately.
3.
Voorhis wonders why the state and local governments should be asked to
come up with their own domestic programs from scratch, when there are
already federal programs that have been developed after a significant
amount of deliberation.
4. States are not
necessarily eager to solve their own domestic problems. For example,
state governments that are competing to bring business to their state
are reluctant to impose tough environmental regulations. Moreover,
according to Voorhis, local authorities were taking the money that they
got from the federal government to construct new city halls, to augment
the police force, or to balance the budget. (Ironically, people have
made a similar argument against public-works projects, such as those
supported by President Barack Obama. See here and here.
I wonder what Voorhis would say about that, since he was a strong
proponent of the government creating jobs.) And, on page 312, Voorhis
states that, historically-speaking, the national government was the
institution that stepped forward to bring about reform: "It was sobering
to recall that it was national government, not local ones, that freed
the slaves, extended women's rights, wiped out child labor, enacted
social security and medicare, started to protect natural resources
including the precious soil, brought electricity to rural America, and
began to fight pollution of the environment." I don't entirely agree
with Voorhis here, for there were states that did take the
initiative to grant women the right to vote, to protect the environment,
and to end child labor. But not all states did so, and thus the
federal government needed to intervene to make these reforms national.
5.
According to Voorhis on page 312, certain problems are "national in
scope", and thus only the national government can adequately address
them. Voorhis still wants input by those impacted by those problems,
however, for he speaks favorably of boards consisting of the poor.
I
wonder how Voorhis would address the conservative argument that the
Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows the national government
to do only what is enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, while reserving
all other powers to the states and the people. I ask this because,
often in this book, Voorhis appears to be a stickler when it comes to
the U.S. Constitution, especially when he accuses Nixon of disregarding
checks-and-balances as he concentrates power into the hands of the Chief
Executive.