Focuses on the new Community Services Block Grant program-which was administered under a centralized categorical format by the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity from 1964 to 1973 and the U.S. Community Services Administration from 1974 to 1980. The actual impact of this switch from a centralized to a more decentralized federal funding system is analyzed by comparing fiscal, written rulemaking, and informal behind-the-scenes federal administrative and political actions under the old categorical format. These trends are then incorporated into an updated administrative and political overview of the 1960s war on poverty effort, to provide a clearer picture on how the U.S. government's war on poverty was faring in the 1980s.