The Conservative Counterrevolution. Intellectual dominance. Rhetorical victory. Electoral success. But the administrative state survived intact. Spending grew. Agencies remained. Entitlements were untouched. Debt exploded. Why? Because institutions are more durable than ideas. Because constituencies defend their interests. Because path dependency creates irreversibility. The administrative welfare state, once built, proved nearly impossible to dismantle

Richard Nixon took office in 1969 promising to “return power to the states.” His New Federalism proposed shifting responsibility for welfare and education downward while consolidating federal aid into block grants. But the machinery of cooperative federalism—grants, audits, matching formulas—remained intact. Nixon replaced categorical grants with larger ones but left the fiscal pipeline untouched. Federal aid to states increased from $24 billion in 1970 to $47 billion by 197