President Jimmy Carter
He served as President of the United States from January 1977 to January 1981.
Embedded Files
President Carter and his wife Rosalynn.
The presidency of Jimmy Carter is one of the most misunderstood presidencies in American history. President Carter was too conservative for liberal Democrats and not conservative enough for conservative Republicans, to paraphrase Stuart Eizenstat, a former top aide in the Carter White House.
President Carter's real record, not the one often attributed to him, shows that he was a moderate conservative on many issues, that he was strong on national defense, and that he was one of the most fiscally conservative presidents of the modern era. However, during her eulogy at President Carter’s funeral, Kamala Harris falsely painted Carter as a fellow liberal, as a pioneering progressive who championed all the same causes she champions. Carter did agree with current liberal Democrats on some issues, but he disagreed with them on a number of other issues.
It must also be said that most conservative Republicans have falsely painted Carter as a big-spending, big-government liberal who was soft on national defense, weak in the face of Soviet aggression, and dangerously naive when it came to foreign affairs in general. Some conservatives also portray Carter as having been deceitful and corrupt, when in fact he was honest and ethical. Indeed, he was arguably the most honest and ethical president of the modern era.
Let us examine some facts about President Carter's record that many accounts of his presidency either ignore or minimize:
-- Carter signed the Hyde Amendment, which banned the federal funding of abortion. Liberal Democrats criticized him for this, and liberals in our day continue to oppose the Hyde Amendment.
-- Carter opened 100% of Alaska’s coastline for oil and natural gas exploration. He did this in exchange for Congress’s agreement with his designation of 157 million acres as protected wilderness areas or national parks, a reasonable compromise that liberal Democrats nowadays would condemn.
-- Carter approved a record amount of oil and natural gas drilling. In 1980 alone, more oil and natural gas wells were drilled than in any previous year in American history.
-- Carter pushed for an enormous increase in coal production.
Carter also advocated conservation and alternative energy (solar and wind), but he was no green extremist. He was realistic and balanced when it came to energy policy.
-- Carter increased defense spending every year he was in office. Defense spending rose by 10% in real terms, i.e., after inflation, during Carter's four years. The far-left Nuclear Age Peace Foundation attacks Carter because "military spending shot up from $115 billion in his first budget to nearly $180 billion in his final one." This was one of the reasons the liberal wing of his party was upset with him, and one of the reasons Ted Kennedy challenged him in the 1980 Democratic primary. Many Kennedy supporters accused Carter of being "a secret Republican."
-- Carter strongly supported the development of the B-2 stealth bomber, the Trident D5, the F/A-18 Hornet, the Aegis radar-weapon system, and the MX missile. He approved the deployment of air-launched cruise missiles. Nine of the first 10 Los Angeles-class nuclear fast attack submarines were commissioned under Carter, seven of them in the last two years of his term. The first three Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines were launched or laid down under Carter.
-- Carter approved the stationing of medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe aimed at the Soviet Union, a move that the Soviets and their American liberal apologists deemed “provocative.”
-- Carter pushed through large increases in military pay: 6.2% for 1978, 5.5% for 1979, 7.0% for 1980, and 11.7% for 1981. President Ronald Reagan was justifiably hailed for signing a 14.3% military pay hike for 1982, but that pay hike had been submitted in the last Carter defense budget.
The claims that Carter was soft on national defense, that he left the military in a hollow state, and that he weakened America's position in the Cold War are baseless. He did just the opposite. Historian Nancy Mitchell:
In fact, the United States was winning the Cold War. There were huge gains during the Carter years in China, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. In January 1981, when Carter left the presidency, the United States was in a stronger position vis à vis the Soviet Union than it had been in January 1977 when he and Rosalynn had strolled to the White House. (Three Myths About the Jimmy Carter Presidency)
-- Carter pushed through massive deregulation. He deregulated entire industries, including air travel, trucking, railroads, natural gas, and telecommunications. He needed support from Republicans in Congress for deregulation because some Democrats opposed his deregulation efforts. Nowadays, liberal Democrats usually see deregulation as dangerous and irresponsible.
-- Carter held the growth of the federal workforce to almost zero. There were 2.85 million federal employees when he took office and 2.96 million when he left office, an increase of only 3.9%. In contrast, under Reagan, the federal workforce grew by 6.4%, going from 2.96 million to 3.15 million. From April 1980 to his last month in office, Carter reduced the number of federal employees from 3.25 million to 2.96 million. He also reduced the number of federal agencies/bureaus/offices from approximately 1,900 to around 1,500.
-- Under Carter, the economy added 9.8 million non-farm/salaried jobs (10.1 million total), for an average job growth rate of 211,000 per month. Carter's job growth rate was higher than that of Reagan, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
-- Carter reduced the federal deficit as a percentage of GDP and added less debt to the national debt per year than did Reagan, Richard Nixon, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Obama. Joe Renouard observes,
Under Carter, the annual federal deficit was consistently low, the national debt stayed below $1 trillion, and gross federal debt as a percentage of GDP peaked below 40%, the lowest of any presidency since the 1920s. During his final year in office, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 32% and the deficit-to-GDP ratio was 1.7%. In the ensuing twelve years of Reagan and Bush (1981-1993), the debt quadrupled to over $4 trillion and the debt-to-GDP ratio doubled. (Jimmy Carter: The Last of the Fiscally Responsible Presidents)
The federal budget deficit rose by a smaller amount under Carter than it did under Reagan and both Bushes.
-- Carter ended the 1977-78 coal miners’ strike by invoking the Taft-Hartley law and ordering the miners back to work. He even cut off food stamps to miners who defied the order. Carter invoked Taft-Hartley after the miners’ union rejected two contract offers brokered by the Carter administration. Following Carter's return-to-work order, the union soon accepted a new contract. Although some people believed the new contract was too generous, some labor advocates believed it was a step backward for miners. The agreement prohibited the miners from striking over local issues, forced the miners to pay a larger share of their medical costs, and rejected sizable pension hikes for senior retirees.
-- With the Tax Reduction and Simplification Act of 1977, Carter reduced taxes on low-income and middle-income taxpayers and simplified the tax code. He replaced the minimum standard deduction of $1,700 for single persons with a flat standard deduction of $2,200 for them. He replaced the minimum standard deduction of $2,100 for married couples with a flat standard deduction of $3,200 for them. He substantially reduced the income tax liability of middle-income married couples with children, cutting their tax liability by an average of 33%.
The 1977 tax reduction bill also eliminated tax payments for some 3 million low-income families. In addition, the bill provided tax credits for businesses to enable them to create more jobs, which was surely part of the reason for the robust job growth that occurred under Carter.
-- The year after Carter signed the 1977 tax cut bill, he asked Congress to pass more tax cuts. He offered proposals to provide $25 billion in net tax reductions for individuals and businesses ($121 billion in 2025 dollars). His proposals included reductions in corporate tax rates, an extension of the investment tax credit, and additional tax cuts for individuals.
-- Carter cut the capital gains tax from 49% to 28%.
-- Carter pushed for zero-based budgeting, a frugal type of budgeting advocated by conservatives and opposed by liberals, but was never able to get Congress to cooperate. However, as governor of Georgia, he was able to institute zero-based budgeting in the state budget.
-- Carter opposed mandatory school busing.
-- Carter rejected the liberal view that we should feel guilty over the Vietnam War. In a March 1977 press conference, he said, "We went to Vietnam without any desire to capture territory or to impose American will on other people. We went there to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese. I don't feel that we ought to apologize or castigate ourselves or to assume the status of culpability."
As the governor of Georgia, Carter spoke out against violent anti-war protests during the war. In 1971, then-Governor Carter accused anti-war groups of using the My Lai Massacre and the Lt. Calley conviction "to cheapen and shame the reputation of American servicemen." Carter proclaimed April 5, 1971, "American Fighting Men's Day" in Georgia. Anti-war leaders condemned Carter for "pandering to pro-war voters."
-- Carter made substantial progress in making the federal government more efficient and in making federal regulations less burdensome. He did this with the Reorganization Act of 1977, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and Executive Order 12044. The executive order, for example, required agencies to analyze the impact of proposed regulations, to assess the benefits and costs of alternatives, to adopt the least-burdensome approach to achieving regulatory goals, and to embrace flexible regulatory alternatives and market mechanisms instead of traditional command-and-control regulation. Carter was only able to get the 1977 reorganization bill passed with Republican support, since so many Democrats voted against it.
Much more could be said about President Carter's conservative views and achievements, but the above should suffice to prove that he was closer to moderate conservatives such as Joe Manchin, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, and John Kasich than he was to liberals such as Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On January 19, 1978, Carter wrote in his diary that he felt "more at home" with conservative Democrats and Republicans in Congress than he did with the other members of Congress:
I feel more at home with the conservative Democratic and Republican members of the Congress than I do with the others. (Kai Bird, The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Crown Publishers, 2021, p. 289)
I do not agree with everything Carter did, just as I do not agree with everything Reagan, Bush, or Trump did. I disagree with some of Carter's foreign policy decisions. I disagree with his support of the Equal Rights Amendment. I disagree with many of his judicial appointments--many, not all. I disagree with his rejection of the Reagan tax cuts, although Carter did support some tax reductions. I disagree with his pardon of draft dodgers (at least the pardon did not include deserters). I disagree with some of his conservation measures. However, all things considered, I believe he did a good job as president.
President Carter was not the weak, indecisive leader that critics have accused him of being. Far from it. He showed strong and decisive leadership on many occasions.
I also think President Carter was the most ethical, decent, and honest president of the modern era. He and his wife lived the principle of chastity while they were dating--they were both virgins when they got married. President Carter was a devoted husband and father. His marriage was a shining example of what marriage should be. There was never the slightest doubt about President Carter's devotion and faithfulness to his wife.
Finally, President Carter was a practicing Christian who regularly attended church and who openly professed his belief in Jesus Christ as Savior. He encouraged couples who were living together out of wedlock to get married. He and Rosalyn would not allow any couples to spend the night at their home unless they were married. He believed abortion was morally wrong. When he left the White House, he continued to regularly attend church. He even taught Sunday school for many years.
ARTICLES
Jimmy Carter Was a Successful (Conservative) President | TIME
Jimmy Carter: The Last of the Fiscally Responsible Presidents
Passing of President Jimmy Carter (examines Carter's pro-defense policies)
Jimmy Carter, the Great Deregulator
RIP Jimmy Carter, "The Great Deregulator"
Jimmy Carter, Deregulator Extraordinaire
Jimmy Carter Was a Better President Than You Think
Jimmy Carter Supported a Strong National OCS Oil and Gas Program
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981): Transformational Deregulation
President Carter's Tax Reduction and Reform Message to the Congress (January 1978)
President Carter's Speech at a National Family Week Event in Salt Lake City, Utah, 11/27/1978
Remarks to Representatives of U.S. Teams to the 1980 Summy Olympics
Three Myths About the Jimmy Carter Presidency (debunks the myths that Carter was soft on the Soviet Union and that he weakened America's position in the Cold War)
Frank Moore, Oral History (Moore was Carter's Congressional liaison assistant)
It's All But Settled: The Reagan Campaign Delayed the Release of the Iranian Hostages (Note: The evidence indicates that Reagan was not aware of the "October Surprise" intervention to persuade Iran to delay the release of the hostages, and that his campaign manager, William Casey, did it without Reagan's knowledge.)
Was the October Surprise Treason? Craig Unger's Den of Spies
The "October Surprise": Inside Carter's Grueling 1980 Iran Hostage Crisis
I think Rosalynn Carter was the most moral, decent First Lady of the modern era.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse