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.Throughout the episode Rumsfeld backed his young aide againstpressure from one of Nixon s staunchest supporters.The difficulties with the OEO continued.Some of these prob-lems were serious.Others, such as a dispute in California in early1970, were farcical.In late 1969, Governor Ronald Reagan of Cal-ifornia vetoed funding for an OEO program in his state, the EastOakland Fruitville Planning Council.This planning council hadclashed with Mayor John Reading of Oakland, a Republican andstaunch ally of Reagan s; an executive from the organization hadchallenged him in the mayoral election the year before, and sincethen the two had carried on a running dispute.When Reagan ve-toed further funding, supporters of the program argued that thegovernor was playing political games by punishing the politicalopponents of a strong supporter.The Republicans, meanwhile,claimed that the planning council, using federal governmentmoney, had become something of a  shadow government whosemain objective was creating trouble for Mayor Reading.Rumsfeld agreed with Reagan, and he overruled the OEO sown Office of Program Development (OPD), which had recom-mended that the funding continue.Rumsfeld had Cheney explainhis decision to the media. If the OPD can override a veto, thenyou don t need a director, Cheney told the Washington Post.14Cheney61The Planning Council sued to continue the funding and hiredthe Legal Aid Society of Alameda County to represent it.Thatwas a comical twist: the Legal Aid Society was itself funded by theOEO.So one OEO-supported agency was suing the OEO on be-half of another OEO-supported agency to restore its funding.15Incidents like those in Kentucky and California began toshape Cheney s views on the size and scope of government.Hespent several hours each day at the OEO grappling with the inef-ficiencies of large-scale federal programs.His next job would addto this growing skepticism.In the summer of 1971, the U.S.economy was in trouble.In-flation was on the rise and so were the anxieties of American vot-ers.And when the voters were nervous, so was Richard Nixon.On Friday, August 13, President Nixon assembled a small teamof economic and political advisers for a weekend at Camp David.Itwas soon clear to all involved that this would be no ordinary meet-ing.John Connally, Nixon s big-thinking secretary of the treasury,presented a new economic plan, audacious in design and breath-taking in scope.It included tax cuts at home, tax hikes on imports,and, for the first time, an abandonment of the gold standard for thedollar.But the most dramatic change and the one least debated atCamp David16 was an across-the-board freeze on all wages andprices in the U.S.economy.The freeze would be monitored by anew agency called the Cost of Living Council (CLC).Several officials at Camp David, including Nixon, had con-cerns about the economic impact of wage and price controls.George Shultz, director of the Office of Management and Bud-get, who had a PhD in industrial economics from MIT, thoughtthe plan disastrous.But with inflation rising sharply, and the elec-tion of 1972 a little more than a year away, Nixon was less con-cerned with long-term recovery than with reelection.He wantedto be seen as a decisive leader, willing to take action to assuagethe nation s increasing economic worries.The freeze would betemporary, lasting only three months, and little thought wasgiven to how it would end and what, if anything, would follow.Participants in the session at Camp David were struck by howmuch time was devoted to selling the package and how little timeto actually gauging its likely results.Stephen F.Hayes62The new policy would affect every aspect of the U.S.econ-omy, from the price of a meal in Seattle to the rent of a one-bedroom apartment in Tuscaloosa to the salary of a laborer inHanover, New Hampshire.If a half-gallon of milk cost $0.58 onAugust 15, 1971, it would cost $0.58 on November 13, 1971, andon every day in between.Nixon announced the plan to the nation that Sunday in aprime-time address from the White House.The speech wonrave reviews even though it marked a significant policy reversalfor an administration already on record as opposing such wageand price controls.Democrats who might have been expected tocriticize the plan were caught flat-footed.Congress was out ofsession at the time of the announcement, so whatever their com-plaints, they would have to make them from their districts acrossthe country.More important, Nixon had been able to pull offthis audacious move only because congressional Democrats hadgiven him the authority to freeze wages and prices the year be-fore, when they passed the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970.The vote had been, in a sense, a game of political chicken.Democratic leaders had signed off on the bill never imaginingthat a White House generally opposed to governmental intru-sion in the free market would use the authority it granted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]