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Nixon had been a practicing New Federalist since he entered Congress in 1946. Throughout his political career, he had opposed big government programs and fought to restore political authority to the local level. Now he would use the power of the presidency to further the cause of New Federalism.
In 1969, despite civil rights reforms like the landmark decision declaring that segregated schools where unconstitutional, the '64 Civil Rights Bill and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, many African Americans lived without the full protection of the law, equal access to public facilities, or equal economic opportunity. Nixon viewed this situation as not only unfair to African Americans, but as a waste of valuable human resources which could help the nation grow.
Starting in Mississippi and moving across the South, the Nixon administration set up biracial state committees to plan and implement school desegregation. The appeal to local control succeeded. By the end of 1970, with little of the anticipated violence and little fanfare, the committees had made significant progress -- only about 18% of black children in the South attended all-black schools.
New Federalism's focus on local empowerment did not mean an abdication of federal responsibility. In fact, the de-emphasis of federal bureaucracy coincided with a concentration of power within the White House. The president's actions on behalf of women illustrated his willingness to use that concentrated power.
The president sent dozens of environmental proposals to Congress, including the Clean Air Act of 1970, perhaps one of the most significant pieces of environmental legislation ever passed. He also created two new agencies, the Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency, to oversee environmental matters.
Nixon had experienced the sting of poverty as a child, and he never forgot it. But while he sympathized with the poor, he also shared many Americans' conviction that the welfare system had grown into an inefficient bureaucracy which fostered dependency and low self esteem among welfare recipients and contributed to the breakdown of families by providing assistance only to households which were not headed by a working male.
With the assistance of Urban Affairs Council secretary Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Nixon created the Family Assistance Plan. FAP called for the replacement of bureaucratically administered programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, and Medicaid, with direct cash payments to those in need. Not only single-parent families, but the working poor would qualify for aid. All recipients, save the mothers of preschool age children, would be required to work or take job training.