Today's Economic History: Arthur Burns: Secret Diary, 1969
Arthur Burns (August 21, 1969): "The recently announced [Nixon administration] welfare reform [plan] was to do away with food stamps (in order to keep costs down)...
...but then it was discovered--the President didn't know this--that the recent welfare benefit plus promised food stamps would yield larger benefits to many than the new plan. This came as a shock to the administration (certainly to the President and to Ehrlichman; and to Moynihan who cares neither for truth nor for public money), and at once the cry went up that nobody would be worse off. The additional cost, on account of the food stamp fiasco, is still being calculated. It will probably be $1 billion [a year] or so...
http://delong.typepad.com/arthur-burns--secret-diary-1969.pdf
Arthur Burns: Secret Diary (1969) (ed. Robert Ferrell): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0700617302/ref=as_li_tlie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0700617302&linkCode=as2&tag=brde-20&linkId=VPOV3DID2PHOFJ2W
