Still think Carter was a failure? Read this...

[Lineman]

https://mises.org/library/rethinking-carter

Its from 15 years ago, but still passes the fact test

[Lineman]

https://mises.org/library/rethinking-carter

[Private Pickle]

https://mises.org/library/rethinking-carter

Its from 15 years ago, but still passes the fact test

Yes. Still think so...

[Bob]

Link supplied above in post 2.


Republicans like to point to the failures of the Carter Administration and then claim that Ronald Reagan brought us into the present era. Alas, while I prefer Reagan to Carter, I cannot say that the above statement is true. Granted, much occurred during the Reagan Administration that was good, but if truth be known, many of the important initiatives that enabled those boundaries to expand came from Carter's presidency.
To understand the magnitude of change we have witnessed in the last 20 years or so, remember that in 1980 the Interstate Commerce Commission regulated both trucking and the railroads. "Ma Bell" had a nationwide monopoly in which long distance calls came through copper wires, each strand with the capacity of carrying 15 calls. (A single fiber optic line in use today can carry 2 million calls.)
Airlines had been "deregulated" for only two years. Government controlled the pricing and allocation of oil in the United States. "Regulation Q" and other restrictions on banks and financial institutions kept capital formation in the doldrums. Another way of putting it was that many sectors of this economy were more socialistic then than they are now.
Carter's administration played a large part in many of the deregulation efforts. Unfortunately, he usually only got it half right, which reflected his core statist philosophy.


We republicans tend to think it was Reagan that did all the deregulating..

wait a damn minute Bob. We Democrats blame it on Reagan.

Fortunately it was well underway by Carter.


Republicans like to point to the failures of the Carter Administration and then claim that Ronald Reagan brought us into the present era. Alas, while I prefer Reagan to Carter, I cannot say that the above statement is true. Granted, much occurred during the Reagan Administration that was good, but if truth be known, many of the important initiatives that enabled those boundaries to expand came from Carter's presidency.
To understand the magnitude of change we have witnessed in the last 20 years or so, remember that in 1980 the Interstate Commerce Commission regulated both trucking and the railroads. "Ma Bell" had a nationwide monopoly in which long distance calls came through copper wires, each strand with the capacity of carrying 15 calls. (A single fiber optic line in use today can carry 2 million calls.)
Airlines had been "deregulated" for only two years. Government controlled the pricing and allocation of oil in the United States. "Regulation Q" and other restrictions on banks and financial institutions kept capital formation in the doldrums. Another way of putting it was that many sectors of this economy were more socialistic then than they are now.
Carter's administration played a large part in many of the deregulation efforts. Unfortunately, he usually only got it half right, which reflected his core statist philosophy.

The article goes into more detail.

Now Democrats, when you blame Reagan for deregulation as you always do, keep in mind that Carter deregulated the phones, the air transportation and trucks.

Not bad for a failure.

[Bob]

First, he announced gradual decontrol of oil prices and the phasing out of the Keystone-Cops like government allocation system. However, Carter also pushed a "Windfall Profits Tax" on the belief that decontrol would bring higher prices and, thus, higher profits to oil companies that "really don't deserve them." The Wall Street Journal so opposed Carter's oil tax that it published an editorial, "Death of Reason," on the day Congress passed the tax, bordering the editorial in black.
Full decontrol was scheduled to take place in the spring of 1981, but Reagan upon taking office lifted controls almost immediately, thus receiving credit for what was mostly the action of his predecessor. While Carter was mistaken in his belief that decontrol would automatically increase oil profits (many investors also made the same error), one must also recognize the political heat he took for his actions, especially from the left. Ralph Nader, who had endorsed Carter as a "breath of fresh air" just four years earlier, denounced oil decontrol as "the greatest anti-consumer action of this century" and predicted $600 a barrel oil by 1990.
Because deregulation ultimately had the opposite effect that its detractors had predicted (both oil prices and profits fell during the first half of the 1980s), public anger directed against oil companies subsided and within a short time, Congress was able to quietly repeal the so-called Windfall Profits Tax.

[Bob]

Granted, the Carter Administration also gave us incredible economic stupidity. Carter continued to blame the oil companies for the oil crises of the 1970s, and it was his administration that gave us the abominable antitrust action against the cereal companies. (The Federal Trade Commission charged them with having a "shared monopoly" and said that "brand proliferation" of ready-to-eat breakfast cereals was done in violation of the law.) Nor did Carter have the sense and courage to drop the awful antitrust action against IBM. It took the Reagan Administration to drop the IBM and cereal cases, and to ease government actions against mergers.
The Carter Administration also gave greater power to the Federal Reserve System through the Depository Institutions and Monetary Control Act (DIDMCA) of 1980 which otherwise was a necessary first step in ending the harmful New Deal restrictions placed upon financial institutions. In fact, it would be safe to say that Reagan probably would have taken the necessary deregulatory steps had Carter kept all of the regulatory regimes in place.

[zelmo1234]

Well Carter did set things is play that effected our economy, but it was not positive. He started the Equity in housing, which was expanded on by Clinton with the Community reinvestment act, which forced the banks to loan money to people that could not pay them back and led to the sub prime mortgage

This of course with the help of Fannie and Freddie turned in to the housing collapse of 07 and 08.

His creating of the Department of Education has brought about a system so riddled with regulations and indoctrinations that we continue to turn out kids that can read. do basic math or even count change.

He totally decimated the Military leaving a vacuum that the USSR filled and went into expansion mode, and made the USA the laughing stock of the middle east

Policies of subsidizing Green energy, and over regulations of the environment led to skyrocketing energy prices Printing money gave us sky high inflation?

Sounds a lot like the person we have in the WH today,

[sachem]

I love Jimmy, but he wasn't a good president.

[zelmo1234]

I love Jimmy, but he wasn't a good president.

He was a very good person.

[Lineman]

There is meat on the bone for republicans and democrats in that piece.

Go have a comparison look at the national debt, which one tripled it?

Which one reduced it?

Which of them increased taxes and which one helped the wealthiest 1%?

[Redrose]

Carter is a decent man, a good man, but was a lousy president. He is beginning to look better in hindsight because our present president is so feckless.

Compare Carter to Truman or IKE or JFK and Reagan and he looks poor. Compare him to Obama and he starts to shine. It's all relative.

[Lineman]

There is meat on the bone for republicans and democrats in that piece.

Go have a comparison look at the national debt, which one tripled it?

Which one reduced it?

Which of them increased taxes and which one helped the wealthiest 1%?

[Chris]

I love Jimmy, but he wasn't a good president.



Love the avatar. Quite a change!

[Tahuyaman]

It is a fact. Carter was a failure. Even most partisan Democrats concede the point.

[Chris]

Carter, let's see if memory serves me well. He was prez back when Democrats and evangelicals were aligned. I remember gas lines. I remember the Iranian hostages.

But I'd agree, overall, with the Mises Austrian School economic analysis at the OP's link, Carter did some good things to pave the way for Reagan and "also gave us incredible economic stupidity."

[Tahuyaman]

Maybe people are trying revive the Carter legacy because he's no longer considered possibly the most incompetent president of all time? It could be that even he looks good compared to what we have now?

[gettit]

He RUINED us when he didn't Neuton-nuke Teheran. Russia had already SAID that they were going to stay out of the problem, so why NOT? Man, from that point forward, we'd have had NO trouble in the Middle east, and very little anywhere else! If that didn't work, next one on Riyadh, since that's where the REAL problem lies!