Nation: MOVING AHEAD, NIXON STYLE

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The plan was by no means an instant success around the White House when Finch and Moynihan first proposed it more than six months ago, but it finally won Nixon's firm allegiance. After more than two dozen drafts, the program came out not far from its original form: the Finch-Moynihan plan would have assured a welfare family of four $1,500 a year; the final Administration proposal gives them $1,600.

One important contributor was Labor Secretary George Shultz, a quiet-spoken Cabinet comer who increasingly has the President's ear on a range of issues well outside his department's jurisdiction. It was Shultz who pushed hardest for a welfare scheme with "work incentives" that would allow families on relief to take jobs without forfeiting all federal aid. Shultz's streamlining of his cumbersome Manpower Administration (he likened its organizational chart to "a wiring diagram for a perpetual-motion machine") led Nixon to ask for restructuring of all federal job-training programs. For this Administration, the welfare proposals alone are a surprising and impressive departure. But it is a special case. "The present welfare system," Nixon declared last week, "has to be judged a colossal failure."

Because of the President's commitment to the expensive ABM system, and the limits on other federal spending that his concern about inflation dictates, there is little money for social needs that the President himself acknowledges. The result is a deliberate tendency to talk about new programs but postpone their funding; the welfare changes would add $2.5 billion to what the Federal Government already spends, but the new costs would not begin before July 1, 1970. When Nixon produced a mini-legislative program in mid-April, he included a plan for increasing Social Security benefits by 7% to counter the effects of inflation; no more has been heard of that, and Budget Director Robert Mayo is now scrambling desperately to find $3.5 billion to cover such "uncontrollables" as Social Security spending increases already mandated by law.

Bottom of the Barrel

Political pressure recently forced the to change its mind and offer a $1 billion hunger program it had shelved as too costly. Similarly, Congress just added $1 billion to the school-aid bill. "We're just literally right down to the bottom of the barrel," says Presidential Counsel John Ehrlichman. "It's very disheartening to see these opportunities and not have the money to do the job. That billion Congress just hit us for on education — that's a billion we don't have."

Nixon wants desperately to show a substantial surplus in the present fiscal year in order to stop inflation; his bud get is designed to come out $6.3 billion in the black, twice the unexpectedly large surplus of $3.1 billion for the fis cal year just ended. Given Nixon's over riding concern for ending inflation, and the plain fact that military spending continues to be high, he can scarcely be expected to bombard the Congress with regular requests for enactment of costly social programs.