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Domestic policy
Economy
Further information: Nixon shock and 1970s energy crisis
Nixon at the Washington Senators' 1969 Opening Day with team owner Bob Short (arms folded) and Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn (hand on mouth). Nixon's aide, Major Jack Brennan, sits behind them in uniform.
At the time Nixon took office in 1969, inflation was at 4.7 percent—its highest rate since the Korean War. The Great Society had been enacted under Johnson, which, together with the Vietnam War costs, was causing large budget deficits. Unemployment was low, but interest rates were at their highest in a century.[189] Nixon's major economic goal was to reduce inflation; the most obvious means of doing so was to end the war.[189] This could not be accomplished overnight, and the U.S. economy continued to struggle through 1970, contributing to a lackluster Republican performance in the midterm congressional elections (Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress throughout Nixon's presidency).[190] According to political economist Nigel Bowles in his 2011 study of Nixon's economic record, the new president did little to alter Johnson's policies through the first year of his presidency.