The Legacy of Richard Nixon

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The Legacy of Richard Nixon During the presidency of Richard Nixon his administration had marked the end of a period of prosperity in the United States and marked the beginning of high inflation and unemployment. Nixon had implemented more regulation and social legislation that affected the economy more then any other president then the New Deal during the FDR’s Administration. One of Nixon’s largest legacy and impact is the involvement in the Watergate Scandal and cover-up, which fueled more then a generations worth of skepticism about political leaders. President Nixon believed that no one had ever lost an election due to inflation but many elections were lost because of unemployment or recession. He was determined to not let a war on inflation escalate to a point where his administration would lose seats in the house or senate. The end of 1970 had raised unemployment to 6 % rather then 3% when he had taken office. He appointed Arthur Burns as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Burns quickly had established his independence by forcing Nixon to hold federal spending to under 200$ billion dollars to fight inflation. In an attempt to save money, Nixon had delayed pay raises to federal employees by 6 months, which resulted in a national postal worker’s strike. Nixon yielded to the postal workers commands and un-did some of the budget balancing that Arthur Burns had required. During the 1970 elections, Republicans had picked up two seats in the senate but lost nine seats in the house. Nixon blamed this defeat on the economy and it continued to deteriorate. Despite Nixon’s New Economic Policy that began in August 1971, the economic downturn had resumed in 1973. The NEP violated most of Nixon's long-held economic principles, but he was never one to let principle stand in the way of politics, and his dramatic turnaround on economic issues was immediately and
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