ABSTRACT
Congress undertook a series of aid reform efforts in the late 1960s and early 1970s to control and limit spending that built on Morse’s objections and the continued antipathy of fiscally minded conservatives. Just a decade after Kennedy had embraced modernization theory, few in Congress continued to believe that foreign aid could transform other societies and solve global problems. Even its most ardent supporters started to think about aid’s limitations, and most believed that while aid could help solve problems and help people, it would not be transformative. President Richard Nixon certainly saw aid spending this way, and proposed a new business-friendly aid framework. He hoped to reduce the government’s role, and rejected the idea that the United States was responsible for development in other countries. Congressional leaders had their own ideas though, and instead opted to recast the entire aid program. Aid continued, but it increasingly reflected the views of its long-standing critics that the program had wasted money and damaged US international credibility.
