If you think Nixon was more progressive than Obama, then you really don't understand American politics.

Nixon did for the environment what Bush did for Homeland Security. He took a bunch of agencies that already existed and were already issuing regulations, and put them all under control of one person who took orders directly from the President. Thus making it much easier for future Republicans, like Trump, to interfere with environmental rule-making.

And Nixon didn't raise tax rates. He signed a tax bill sent by an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. It didn't raise tax rates either, but it instituted the Alternative Minimum Tax which everyone ignored until decades later when they realized it had unintended effects on the middle class.