Word: moynihan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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There is nothing new in Pat Moynihan's sparking controversy. His memos have a habit of finding their way into print. Back in 1965, when he was an Assistant Secretary of Labor, he wrote a confidential report on the state of the Negro family; one of the chief factors condemning Negroes to poverty, he argued, was the unstable matriarchy created by the absence of fathers in so many homes. When the report got into the press, blacks and whites alike hotly denounced Moynihan for emphasizing black culpability more than white discrimination. In a book published last year, Maximum Feasible...
Liberals find it hard to understand why Moynihan, who claims to be one of their own, spends much of his time rebutting his own creed. The answer is that Moynihan is a very undoctrinaire liberal who wants to get things done -and is willing to pay a certain ideological price to do so. This attitude distinguishes him from what Political Analyst Richard Scammon has dubbed the "uptight liberal" who insists on purity of doctrine, forgets that politics is the business of solving problems, and eats soul food even though he does not like it. By this standard, Moynihan qualifies...
...Moynihan feels free to accept or reject liberal programs on the basis of their practicality. For this reason, he can work with Richard Nixon, who is also a pragmatist, though a conservative one. Both Moynihan and Nixon have questioned whether money alone is the answer to the nation's education problems or whether integration alone is an ultimate panacea for racial ills. This position, of course, can be an excuse for doing nothing at all, but Moynihan is as persuaded as Nixon that the country cannot be run from Washington, and he vigorously supports the President's call...
Like Nixon, Moynihan wants to keep the Federal Government from interfering excessively in individual lives. Thus, he proposes an "income strategy" to replace the "service strategy" traditionally favored by liberals. Instead of government providing the services-and the red tape -funds would go directly to the individual citizen, who would decide himself how to spend them. Moynihan would, in fact, restore a market economy for federal services; a recipient of federal aid would be able to choose among competing suppliers of services, whether housing, schools or medical care...
During his stay at the White House, Moynihan has seen one of his ideas reach the legislation stage. He was the principal author of the income-maintenance program that was voted out of the House Ways and Means Cammittee last week and stands an excellent chance of being passed by Congress this session. The program is a liberal-conservative hybrid. By guaranteeing a basic income for every U.S. family ($1,600 for a family of four) and doubling welfare expenditures to more than $8 billion, it appeals to the left. By requiring the head of every household who receives welfare...