ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the debate in Washington over the major proposals that were put forward during the decade of the 1960s, with special attention to comprehensive reform proposals using guaranteed income. It traces the development of the programs in need of reform. This is necessary because the system was developed over a long period, following a strategy laid out in the 1930s. The chapter outlines the criticisms of the income security system of the 1930s that developed during the debates, and the split that developed among "liberals". Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) planners came forward with an alternative proposal that would have both increased the incomes of the lowest welfare recipients and moderated the inequities by making male-headed families eligible for income supplements. The chapter also outlines the congressional struggle over a specific reform plan, leading up to the death of President Richard Nixon's Family Assistance Plan in 1972.
