We! The People Webzine: A Profile of the Carter Administration by Larry Sakin

A Profile of the Carter Administration

February 19th is Presidents' Day. In honor of that day, we are taking the month of February to look more closely at our Presidents' in a series of profiles. The first - a profile by Larry Sakin of Carter's administration. If you have a favorite president or one you love to hate, send your profiles and letters to the editor of We! [There is a link on the front page of every issue].

by Larry Sakin
February 6, 2007

The editor of We! contacted me about a week ago, asking me to write up a profile of a favorite past President. Few former chief executives fit this description because the enormity of the job almost beckons tragic blunder and horrifying consequences. However, some presidential administrations offer some great lessons for future office holders, and learning from the past is a fine way to chart a better course for our country.

One of the best presidential administrations we can learn from is our thirty-ninth, the one belonging to James Earl "Jimmy" Carter.

Carter's presidency wasn't spectacular. He inherited a lot of problems from his predecessors that loomed large by lack of action on the part of his staff and a Congress unwilling to play ball with his major initiatives. Carter also made a number of disastrous decisions during his term, including allowing the Shah of Iran to enter the U.S. after he was deposed by hard-line Islamic fundamentalists, the 1980 rescue attempt of American hostages held at the American Embassy in Tehran. On the domestic front, Carter did a good job bolstering the social security system, but de-regulated oil, trucking, airline, rail, finance, and communications industries.

Carter was faced with a stagnating economy and consumer price inflation, (known as "stagflation") due to huge debt incurred by the war with Vietnam. The nation was faced with double-digit inflation, coupled with very high interest rates, high unemployment and slow economic growth. President Richard Nixon attempted to talk down inflationary prices during his term, and set an extremely ineffective price freeze policy for the nation. The economy steadily worsened through the last months of Nixon's term and into the one occupied by Nixon's hand picked successor, Gerald R. Ford. Carter's inability to get a hold on the domestic economy led to the prime lending rate rising to an unprecedented 21.5%.

This is significant because with our current war in Iraq, the nation is facing similar circumstances. An insurmountable debt is growing each day, and we're experiencing very slow economic growth. Those two factors will lead to the third rung of Carter's debacle, higher unemployment rates. The Bush Administration is adding fuel to the fire by keeping interest rates and taxes low. Bush believes he can justify his wild-eyed spending by slashing the budgets of social welfare programs. But this is a pipe dream, because social welfare programs make up only a tiny fraction of the debt load.

Whoever succeeds Bush is going to have an economic mess on their hands, much like Carter did. It will be impossible to keep lending rates artificially low as the country moves to service debt. Without a growing economy, revenues will shortfall, and a raise in interest rates and price inflation will be inevitable. Stagflation, here we come.

It's ironic, because the very crises that Republican administrations chose to ignore back in the early to mid-seventies led to the so-called Reagan Revolution of the 1980's. True to form, Reagan allowed the country to enter another term on economic malaise, and passed it along to George H. W. Bush, who allowed it to fester. It took some deep cuts in necessary federal programs by Bill Clinton and the huge growth of the high tech industry to temporarily get the economy on its feet again.

If a democratic candidate is elected to the presidency in 2008, s/he cannot make the same mistakes Carter did. It will be vital for them to tackle the economic impact of the George W. Bush administration immediately to stave off the onslaught of his poor economic policies. Otherwise another Reagan-like revolution may be in the offing for 2012.

While the Carter Administration was dealt a bad hand, solid policy would have lessened the blow of the economic tidal wave that cast our country adrift. But their inept approach to domestic matters could be the historical reference a future executive needs to stem the tide that's currently mounting. Foresight is a rare gift for politicians to possess, but learning from the mistakes of predecessors can improve the vision of future leaders intensely.