Block Grants: Historical Overview and Lessons Learned

April 2004 Block Grants: Historical Overview and Lessons Learned The earliest block grants were enacted as Democratic initiatives. The first two block grants, the Partnership for Health program, approved in 1966, and the Safe Streets program, created under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, were enacted by a Democratic Congress during the Johnson administration. Taken together, these two programs accounted for less than 1 percent of all federal aid to state and local governments (figure 1 . . .