The Republican Richard Nixon was elected US President in 1968 on a platform of scaling down the Democrats’ expensive Great Society programs. “I am not an economic determinist,” Samuelson wrote in November 1968, “But I can predict with confidence that Richard Nixon will be using the New Economics if only for the reason that new times make it inescapable.”
萨缪尔逊认为，这一点无关于掌权政党的意识形态偏好。共和党的尼克松1968年当选美国总统，靠的是缩减民主党的扩张性大社会（Great Society）计划。“我不是经济决定论者，”萨缪尔逊在1968年11月写道，“但我可以信心满满地预言，尼克松将会利用新经济学，因为在新时代，这是不可避免的。”