jimmy carter on ecomomics

jimmy carter on ecomomics

Jimmy Carter on Economics

1. Economic Policies during Jimmy Carter’s Presidency

One of the ideas accepted then, and still accepted by a number of quite prominent economists, was that if he had attempted to fight inflation by increasing rents, transportation, energy, and a number of other sample industries, the grumpy consumers would have run him out of office. A more prevalent hypothesis is that Paul Volcker, who was then Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, planted his foot on the money supply brake week after week, and Carter refused to assert himself in that battle in order to get the politically unpopular measures necessary to fight inflation.

In general, Jimmy Carter’s policies in the economic area were a mass of contradictions characterized by a general lack of commitment to principles or ideas. The major characteristic of Carter’s economic policy was inflation, which was never really a major concern for him. He did take some rather bold steps in a number of areas – direct foreign investment, the consumerism of America and our society’s preoccupation with consumption, the fact that we have a trade deficit. He did make some important speeches pointing out how silly this was. He called for limitations on energy consumption and referred to our entire lifestyles as morally bankrupt. Carter quite courageously took the first steps towards deregulation of the airlines. These were bold steps for anyone to take, and he is entitled to a great deal of credit for them. But no matter what presidents have, any number of other people say, they do make a huge amount of difference.

2. Impact of Inflation on the Economy

Despite our strong opposition to inflation, we recognize in politics the need to have compassion for the laid-off workers who have suffered most from our policies in the short run. We have enacted as caring policies as we could in the existing political environment, and I have spoken many times about the need for the response of the private sector to the oncoming malaria to be more humane, insightful, and generous. The labor is producing a steady separator of our gross national product. Some of the success, improved productivity depends on technological change and hard work.

The President has tried to cut down the inflation rate by limiting public spending, by controlling the money supply, and by tightening credit. Although these restrictions have caused interest rates to go up and have generally slowed economic activity as they were designed to do, they have increased inflation by increasing unemployment and by creating widespread uncertainty. But much more distressing has been the millions of Americans who have not continued to receive pay and benefit increases to keep up with inflation, and many have had to accept lower living standards. Others cannot get work as it has been scarce because of the forced economic slowdown; for this group unemployment was particularly severe. Until the policies of this country have been turned around, we must continue to be ready for numerous economic policy moves that tend to reduce inflation, as these are likely to add to involuntary unemployment and vice versa. The United States Federal Reserve took some steps to increase the money supply and will continue to do so if needed to reduce inflation rate.

3. Energy Crisis and its Economic Ramifications

The shortage also exacted other far-reaching payments that went beyond our pocketbooks. Citizens seemed to have less trust in each other and looked only to the immediate future. Animal spirits were dampened, and the national optimism of our history was lost in the shorter view of only national limitations. For the call to limit pork in our diet, most citizens responded with examples of the various luxuries others refused to forego. More than that, the shortage made us more conservative, less prosperous, and less safe than before – subjects who willingly allowed our masters in the Head: Offices of the Middle East to redefine the limits of our world. Only densely-woven tissues of our government’s activities kept us isolated from vastly different ideas that had the potential to change our understanding of the free world.

The energy crisis has had far-reaching and damaging effects on American society. The normal patterns of American life, which have been created through much industry and planning, have been severely disrupted. This includes the proper functioning of the economy. It is difficult to overestimate just how important an adequate and stable energy supply is to all areas of our economy, especially manufacturing and agriculture. An energy shortage drives up the cost of resource extraction and capital improvement. This, in turn, causes prices to rise everywhere, but particularly in transportation and utilities, making it more difficult for individuals and businesses to exercise control over their own spending. They then spend less, partly as a matter of necessity, but also from a gloomier, more uncertain sense of the future. The result is a reduced gross national product and an ever-worsening inflation.

4. Efforts to Promote Job Creation and Economic Growth

The Housing and Community Development Act is an important part of the effort to foster business confidence, increase job opportunities for thousands of Americans, and help rejuvenate the economic strength of our nation. The lure of economic growth usually prompts growth of the housing industry. Job creation and community development opportunities will undoubtedly increase as this new incentive takes hold. I am pleased to sign this important legislation into law. The bill is a major step toward solving a major problem for our nation—the lack of employment opportunities for millions of Americans. With this action, we gain crucial new job-generating opportunities at the grassroots where they can make a real difference in the quality of life of our fellow Americans. At the same time, I am hopeful that the bill will set us on a course for increased economic growth to provide still more jobs in the private sector.

Today, with the number of unemployed Americans having reached over 10.5 million and the ratio of unemployed to job vacancies above 4 to 1, the private sector cannot alone generate the number of employment opportunities needed to remedy the problem. Action must be taken to start the economy on a course of resurgence, coupled with education and training programs in vocational subjects to provide job skills and encourage the development of new, job-producing businesses across the nation. I am encouraged at the support this effort is already receiving from business, labor, and the American public.

5. Evaluation of Jimmy Carter’s Economic Legacy

Four Decades Later, an Assessment of Jimmy Carter’s Economic Policies by Samuel Bowles, Arjun Jayadev, and Sai Amulya C. The U.S. economy has taken an alarming turn away from the “virtuous circles” of higher employment and wages that were so hard to recapture in the recovery from the Great Recession. Not since the dark days of the late 1970s has wage growth been suppressed so deeply into an economic recovery. As the 1980 presidential campaign began, President Jimmy Carter was politically vulnerable. The public was angry about inflation, high interest rates, meager growth, and unemployment. Fearing that Carter would be defeated by his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, White House officials pressed Carter to adopt a set of proposals collectively known as the New Directions program with policies to stimulate jobs and growth while favoring the working poor and augmenting other categories of government spending.

In his forthcoming book on Jimmy Carter, “An Anxious Age,” the journalist Joseph Bottum tells the story of how, as an eight-year-old, he overheard much of “the one truly great political speech” of the future president. It was Thanksgiving 1975. His mother had invited a bunch of Catholics over for “planned spontaneity” – so in a way she was also running for office. After showing the family two films in one evening, she hedged her bets by showing “the one great politician, the Protestant,” too. Bottum writes: “Jimmy Carter was middle-aged, small, slight. Not much more than my own father, I thought, and the other dads in the room weren’t much larger.” Carter spoke for half an hour, answered some questions, had two sandwiches. “He was an engineer and a farmer,” Bottum reflects. “Did I not fill him afterward with my own questions, carried to the end under the bottomless balloon of his smile? What wise corporation would choose their chief executive with less care than we would choose Jimmy Carter?”