[194] Bowles points out,

by identifying himself with a policy whose purpose was inflation's defeat, Nixon made it difficult for Democratic opponents ... to criticize him. His opponents could offer no alternative policy that was either plausible or believable since the one they favored was one they had designed but which the president had appropriated for himself.[191]
Nixon's policies dampened inflation through 1972, although their aftereffects contributed to inflation during his second term and into the Ford administration.[194] Nixon's decision to end the gold standard in the United States led to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. According to Thomas Oatley, "the Bretton Woods system collapsed so that Nixon might win the 1972 presidential election."[192]
After Nixon won re-election, inflation was returning.[195] He reimposed price controls in June 1973. The price controls became unpopular with the public and businesspeople, who saw powerful labor unions as preferable to the price board bureaucracy.[195] The controls produced food shortages, as meat disappeared from grocery stores and farmers drowned chickens rather than sell them at a loss.[195] Despite the failure to control inflation, controls were slowly ended, and on April 30, 1974, their statutory authorization lapsed.