News Analysis

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20—The new era of federalism that President Nixon promised in his first term stands a good chance of becoming a reality in his sec ond.

That is the opinion of many senior officials and various Government experts here. The President and his advisers have been meeting pri vately at Camp David for the last week to find ways of reshaping the Government.

No one in the Federal agen cies and departments appears to have received any official word on the specifics of the President's current delibera tions, but enough is known of his intentions that one can form some impressions of what is coming.

‘Money on the Stump’

The second Nixon term is likely to see the end of many Great Society programs enact ed in the nineteen‐sixties, es pecially highly structured ones that require tight administra tion by Federal agencies.

The era of the Federal Gov ernment responding to specific needs with resources directed by the Federal bureaucracy is giving way to a new era in which the Federal Government, in the words of one Tennessee official, “leaves the money on the stump” for local officials to pick up and use for a gen eral or any other public pur pose.

This started with block grants to states and localities for law enforcement—they may use the money much as they wish so long as it has some connection with crime eradica tion—and moved on to general revenue sharing, which provid ed this year for the first dis persal of Federal money for lo cal officials to use as they please.

Programs Affected

But there are still many pro grams on the books that the Nixon White House, with its in creasing authority over spend ing, is determined to end or drastically reduce as it cuts Federal outlays. These include a number of urban, educational or antipoverty efforts started in the Kennedy and Johnson Ad ministrations.

Model Cities, for example, a $600‐million‐a‐year program for revitalizing decayed urban areas, which the Nixon Admin istration kept only because of political pressure, is sure to go in the second term.

If it is not abolished it will be folded into block grants that mayors may use as they wish. The Administration has already moved Model Cities grants to ward local control.

Federal strings are likely to be loosened on manpower train ing, educational, anticrime and other grants, and the remaining Federal controls are expected to go in the direction of en forcing the ideological concepts of the Nixon majority—the “work ethic” for welfare recipi ents, for example.

Many in Washington believe that “putting the money on the stump” will lead to enormous scandals and misuse of “funds that will cause the pendulum to swing back to more Federal controls within a few years.

There has already been fraud in anticrime and housing pro grams that were decentralized. But the trend is toward decen tralization, not only in the Ad ministration but also in the Democratic Congress. It was a theme in many campaigns this year.

Essence of Plan

The Nixon governmental reor ganization plan, proposed in the first term, is expected to be partially enacted, and there are some steps toward reorganiza tion, now under consideration, that the White House can take through executive action and through funding policies.

The essence of the reorgani zation plan is to transfer the functions of six domestic de partments—Interior; Commerce; Labor; Housing and Urban De velopment; Health, Education and Welfare, and Transporta tion—into four new depart ments: Natural Resources, Hu man Resources, Economic Af fairs and Community Develop ment.

There may be modifications as a result of the current meet ings. Roy Ash, chairman of the advisory council that drafted the plan, has been called back to duty temporarily to work with the President on his forth coming proposals.

The basic intent of the plan, however, is expected to remain the same: a grouping of re lated programs, more authority in regional offices and a shift ing of power from career bu reaucrats to political executives.

The opposition is formidable. Aside from the usual insistence by interest groups and their supporters in Government that they ?? the present struc ture, such a thorough reorgani zation would demand a re shuffling of the committee sys tem of Congress, which in it self would be hard to achieve.

Centralized Policy Making

While the machinery of gov ernment is being decentralized, the policy‐making process is expected to be further cen tralized, taken out of the de partments and moved to the White House, where it is much more difficult for Congress and the public to trace how the decisions are made.

President Nixon started this trend in his first term and served notice that he would ccntinue it into his second, partly because of his distrust of what he has called “petty bu reaucrats” concerned with building empires.

Administration sources said it was this concern, how to take power from the bureaucrats, that is at the center of the Camp David discussions.