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Jimmy Carter |
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|---|---|
Official portrait, 1978 |
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| In office January 20, 1977 – January 20, 1981 |
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| Vice President | Walter Mondale |
| Preceded by | Gerald Ford |
| Succeeded by | Ronald Reagan |
| In office January 12, 1971 – January 14, 1975 |
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| Lieutenant | Lester Maddox |
| Preceded by | Lester Maddox |
| Succeeded by | George Busbee |
| In office January 14, 1963 – January 9, 1967 |
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| Preceded by | District established |
| Succeeded by | Hugh Carter |
| Born |
James Earl Carter Jr. October 1, 1924 (age 98) |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4, including Jack and Amy |
| Parents | |
| Residence(s) | Plains, Georgia |
| Education | United States Naval Academy (BS) |
| Civilian awards | List of awards and honors |
| Signature |  |
| Branch/service | United States Navy |
| Years of service |
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| Rank | Lieutenant |
| Military awards | |
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Carter on the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty |
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James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American retired politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a Georgia state senator from 1963 to 1967, and as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975.
Carter was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1946, and joined the United States Navy, serving in the submarine service. Afterward he returned home, where he revived his family’s peanut-growing business. He then manifested his opposition to racial segregation, supported the growing civil rights movement, and became an activist within the Democratic Party. From 1963 to 1967 he served in the Georgia State Senate and in 1970 was elected governor of Georgia. As a dark horse candidate not well known outside of Georgia, Carter won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, and narrowly defeated incumbent Republican president Gerald Ford in the 1976 United States presidential election.
On his second day as president, Carter pardoned all Vietnam War draft evaders. His administration established the United States Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He also created a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. He also confronted stagflation. The end of his presidency was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island accident, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response to the invasion, he escalated the Cold War when he ended détente, imposed a grain embargo against the Soviets, enunciated the Carter Doctrine, and led the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott. In the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries, Carter took the nomination over United States senator Ted Kennedy at the 1980 Democratic National Convention, but then lost the presidential election in a landslide to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan.
Carter left office in 1981 as the only American president to serve a full term in office without appointing a justice to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1982, he established the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights, which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections and further the eradication of infectious diseases. He is a key figure in the nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity and has written numerous books, ranging from political memoirs to poetry, while continuing to comment on global affairs, including two books on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, in which he criticized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as apartheid. Polls of historians and political scientists generally rank Carter as a slightly below-average president, although his post-presidential activities are considered exceptional. At 98 years, 4 months and 23 days old and with a 42 years, 1 month and 4 days-long retirement, Carter is both the longest-lived president and the one with the longest post-presidency, and his 76 years, 7 months and 17 days-long marriage makes him the longest-married president. Carter has been the oldest living president since the death of George H. W. Bush in 2018, and he is also the third-oldest living person to have served as a nation’s leader.
Early life
James Earl Carter Jr. was born October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia at the Wise Sanitarium, where his mother worked as a registered nurse.[1] With this, Carter became the first American president to be born in a hospital.[2] He was the eldest son of Bessie Lillian and James Earl Carter Sr.[3]: 70 Carter is a descendant of English immigrant Thomas Carter, who settled in the Colony of Virginia in 1635.[4] Numerous generations of Carters lived as cotton farmers in Georgia.[5] Plains was a boomtown of 600 people at the time of Carter’s birth. His father was a successful local businessman, who ran a general store and was an investor in farmland.[6] Carter’s father had previously served as a reserve second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps during World War I.[6]
During Carter’s infancy, his family moved several times,[2] settling on a dirt road in nearby Archery, which was almost entirely populated by impoverished African American families.[7] His family eventually had three more children: Gloria, Ruth, and Billy.[8] He got along well with his parents. His mother was often absent during his childhood, working long hours. Although his father was staunchly pro-segregation, he allowed Jimmy to befriend the Black farmhands’ children.[9] Carter was an enterprising teenager who was given his own acre of Earl’s farmland, where he grew, packaged, and sold peanuts.[10] He also rented out a section of tenant housing that he had purchased.[2]
Education
Carter attended Plains High School from 1937 to 1941, graduating from the eleventh grade, since the school did not have a twelfth grade.[11] By that time, Archery and Plains had been impoverished by the Great Depression, but the family benefited from New Deal farming subsidies, and Carter’s father took a position as a community leader.[10][12] Carter himself was a diligent student with a fondness for reading.[13]: 8 [14] A popular anecdote holds that he was passed over for valedictorian after he and his friends skipped school to venture downtown in a hot rod. Carter’s truancy was mentioned in a local newspaper, although it is not clear he would have otherwise been valedictorian.[15] As an adolescent, Carter played on the Plains High School basketball team, and also joined a youth organization named the Future Farmers of America, which helped him develop a lifelong interest in woodworking.[15]
Carter had long dreamed of attending the United States Naval Academy.[10] In 1941, he started undergraduate coursework in engineering at Georgia Southwestern College in nearby Americus, Georgia.[16]: 99 The following year, he transferred to the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and he earned admission to the Naval Academy in 1943.[13]: 38 He was a good student but was seen as reserved and quiet, in contrast to the academy’s culture of aggressive hazing of freshmen.[3]: 62 While at the academy, Carter fell in love with Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister Ruth.[17] The two married shortly after his graduation in 1946.[18] He was a sprint football player for the Navy Midshipmen.[19] Carter graduated 60th out of 821 midshipmen in the class of 1947[20] with a Bachelor of Science degree and was commissioned as an ensign.[21]
From 1946 to 1953, the Carters lived in Virginia, Hawaii, Connecticut, New York and California, during his deployments in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets.[22] In 1948, he began officer training for submarine duty and served aboard USS Pomfret.[23] He was promoted to lieutenant junior grade in 1949, and his service aboard Pomfret included a simulated war patrol to the western Pacific and Chinese coast from January to March of that year.[24] In 1951 he was assigned to the diesel/electric USS K-1 (SSK-1), qualified for command, and served in several positions, to include executive officer.[25]
In 1952, he began an association with the Navy’s fledgling nuclear submarine program, led then by captain Hyman G. Rickover.[26] Rickover had high standards and demands for his men and machines, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on his life.[27] He was sent to the Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. for three-month temporary duty, while Rosalynn moved with their children to Schenectady, New York.[28]
On December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada‘s Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown, resulting in millions of liters of radioactive water flooding the reactor building’s basement. This left the reactor’s core ruined.[29] Carter was ordered to Chalk River to lead a U.S. maintenance crew that joined other American and Canadian service personnel to assist in the shutdown of the reactor.[30] The painstaking process required each team member to don protective gear and be lowered individually into the reactor for a few minutes at a time, limiting their exposure to radioactivity while they disassembled the crippled reactor.[31] During and after his presidency, Carter said that his experience at Chalk River had shaped his views on atomic energy and led him to cease development of a neutron bomb.[32]
In March 1953, Carter began nuclear power school, a six-month non-credit course covering nuclear power plant operation at the Union College in Schenectady.[22] His intent was to eventually work aboard USS Seawolf, which was planned to be the second U.S. nuclear submarine.[33] His plans changed when his father died of pancreatic cancer in July, two months before construction of Seawolf began, and Carter obtained a release from active duty so he could take over the family peanut business.[34][16]: 100 Deciding to leave Schenectady proved difficult, as Rosalynn had grown comfortable with their life there.[35][36] She said later that returning to small-town life in Plains seemed “a monumental step backward.”[37] Carter left active duty on October 9, 1953.[38][39] He served in the inactive Navy Reserve until 1961, and left the service with the rank of lieutenant.[40] His awards include the American Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, China Service Medal, and National Defense Service Medal.[41] As a submarine officer he also earned the “dolphin” badge.[42]
Farming
After debt settlements and division of his estate among its heirs, Jimmy inherited comparatively little.[43] For a year, he, Rosalynn, and their three sons lived in public housing in Plains.[note 1] Carter was knowledgeable in scientific and technological subjects, and he set out to expand the family’s peanut-growing business.[45] Transitioning from the Navy to an agri-businessman was difficult as his first-year harvest failed due to a drought, and Carter had to open several bank lines of credit to keep the farm afloat.[46] Meanwhile, he took classes and read up on agriculture while Rosalynn learned accounting to manage the business’s books.[47] Though they barely broke even the first year, the Carters grew the business and became quite successful.[44][48]
Early political career (1963–1971)
Georgia state senator (1963–1967)
As racial tension inflamed in Plains by the 1954 Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Brown v. Board of Education,[49] Carter favored racial tolerance and integration, but often kept those feelings to himself to avoid making enemies. By 1961, he began to speak more prominently of integration as a member of the Baptist Church and chairman of the Sumter County school board.[50][51] In 1962, Carter announced his campaign for an open Georgia State Senate seat fifteen days before the election.[52] Rosalynn, who had an instinct for politics and organization, was instrumental to his campaign. Early counting of the ballots showed Carter trailing his opponent Homer Moore, but this was the result of fraudulent voting orchestrated by Joe Hurst, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Quitman County.[53] Carter challenged the election result, which was confirmed fraudulent in an investigation. Following this, another election was held, in which Carter won against Moore as the sole Democratic candidate, with a vote margin of 3,013 to 2,182.[54]
The civil rights movement was well underway when Carter took office. He and his family had become staunch John F. Kennedy supporters. Carter remained relatively quiet on the issue at first, even as it polarized much of the county, to avoid alienating his segregationist colleagues. He did speak up on a few divisive issues, giving speeches against literacy tests and against an amendment to the Georgia Constitution which, he felt, implied a compulsion to practice religion.[55] Carter entered the state Democratic Executive Committee two years into office, where he helped rewrite the state party’s rules. He became the chairman of the West Central Georgia Planning and Development Commission, which oversaw the disbursement of federal and state grants for projects such as historic site restoration.[56]
When Bo Callaway was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1964, Carter immediately began planning to challenge him. The two had previously clashed over which two-year college would be expanded to a four-year college program by the state, and Carter saw Callaway—who had switched to the Republican Party—as a rival that represented aspects of politics he despised.[57] Carter himself was re-elected to a second two-year term in the state Senate,[58] where he chaired its Education Committee and sat on the Appropriations Committee toward the end of the term. He contributed also to a bill expanding statewide education funding and getting Georgia Southwestern State University a four-year program. He leveraged his regional planning work, giving speeches around the district to make himself more visible to potential voters. On the last day of the term, Carter announced his run for the House of Representatives.[59] However, Callaway decided to run for Georgia’s governorship,[60] and Carter would abandon his own efforts, also deciding to run for the governorship.[61]
1966 and 1970 gubernatorial campaigns
In the 1966 gubernatorial election, Carter ran against liberal former governor Ellis Arnall and conservative segregationist Lester Maddox in the Democratic primary. In a press conference, he described his ideology as “Conservative, moderate, liberal and middle-of-the-road. … I believe I am a more complicated person than that.”[62] He lost the primary, but drew enough votes as a third-place candidate to force Arnall into a runoff election with Maddox, who then narrowly defeated Arnall.[63] In the general election, Republican nominee Callaway went on to win a plurality of the vote, but short of a 50 percent majority, allowing the Democratic-majority Georgia House of Representatives to elect Maddox as governor.[63] This resulted in a victorious Maddox, whose victory—due to his segregationist stance—was seen as the worse outcome to the indebted Carter.[63] Carter returned to his agriculture business, carefully planning his next campaign. This period was a spiritual turning point for Carter; he declared himself a born again Christian, and his last child Amy was born during this time.[64][65]
In the 1970 gubernatorial election, liberal former governor Carl Sanders became Carter’s main opponent in the Democratic primary. Carter ran a more modern campaign, employing printed graphics and statistical analysis. Responding to the poll data, Carter leaned more conservative than before, positioning himself as a populist and criticizing Sanders for both his wealth and perceived links to the national Democratic Party. He also accused Sanders of corruption, but when pressed by the media, could not come up with evidence.[66][67] Throughout his campaign, Carter sought both the black vote and Wallace vote, referring to supporters of the prominent Alabama segregationist George Wallace. While he met with black figures such as Martin Luther King Sr. and Andrew Young, and visited many Black-owned businesses, he also praised Wallace and promised to invite him to give a speech in Georgia. Carter’s appeal to racism became more blatant over time, with his senior campaign aides handing out a photograph of Sanders celebrating with Black basketball players.[66][67]
Carter came ahead of Sanders in the first ballot by 49 percent to 38 percent in September, leading to a runoff election. The subsequent campaign was even more bitter; despite his early support for civil rights, Carter’s appeal to racism grew, criticizing Sanders for supporting Martin Luther King Jr. Carter won the runoff election with 60 percent of the vote, and went on to easily win the general election against Republican nominee Hal Suit. Once he was elected, Carter changed his tone, and began to speak against Georgia’s racist politics. Leroy Johnson, a black state senator, voiced his support for Carter: “I understand why he ran that kind of ultra-conservative campaign. I don’t believe you can win this state without being a racist.”[66]
Georgia governorship (1971–1975)
Carter’s official portrait as Governor of Georgia
Carter was sworn in as the 76th governor of Georgia on January 12, 1971. In his inaugural speech, he declared that “the time of racial discrimination is over”,[68] shocking the crowd and causing many of the segregationists who had supported Carter during the race to feel betrayed. Carter was reluctant to engage with his fellow politicians, making him unpopular with the legislature.[69][70] He expanded the governor’s authority by introducing a reorganization plan submitted in January 1972.[71] Despite initially having a cool reception in the legislature, the plan was passed at midnight on the last day of the session.[72] He ultimately merged about 300 state agencies into 22, although it is disputed that there were any overall cost savings from doing so.[73] On July 8, 1971, during an appearance in Columbus, Georgia, he stated his intent to establish a Georgia Human Rights Council to help solve issues within the state ahead of any potential violence.[74]
In a news conference on July 13, 1971, Carter announced his ordering of department heads to reduce spending for the aid of preventing a $57 million deficit by the end of the 1972 fiscal year, specifying that each state department would be impacted and estimating that 5 percent over government revenue would be lost if state departments continued full using allocated funds.[75] On January 13, 1972, Carter requested the state legislature to provide funding for an early childhood development program along with prison reform programs and $48 million (equivalent to $310,949,881 in 2021) in paid taxes for nearly all state employees.[76]
On March 1, 1972, Carter stated a possible usage of a special session of the general assembly could take place if Justice Department opted to turn down any reapportionment plans by either the House or Senate.[77] Carter pushed several reforms through the legislature, providing equal state aid to schools in the wealthy and poor areas of Georgia, setting up community centers for mentally handicapped children, and increasing educational programs for convicts. Under this program, all such appointments were based on merit, rather than political influence.[78][79] In one of his more controversial decisions, he vetoed a plan to build a dam on Georgia’s Flint River, which attracted the attention of environmentalists nationwide.[80][81]
Civil rights were a high priority for Carter, who added black state employees and portraits of three prominent black Georgians to the capitol building: Martin Luther King Jr., Lucy Craft Laney, and Henry McNeal Turner. This angered the Ku Klux Klan.[81] He favored a constitutional amendment to ban busing for the purpose of expediting integration in schools on a televised joint appearance with Florida governor Reubin Askew on January 31, 1973,[82] and co-sponsored an anti-busing resolution with Wallace at the 1971 National Governors Conference.[83][84] After the U.S. Supreme Court threw out Georgia’s death penalty statute in Furman v. Georgia (1972), Carter signed a revised death-penalty statute that addressed the court’s objections, thus re-introducing the practice in the state. Carter later regretted endorsing the death penalty, saying, “I didn’t see the injustice of it as I do now.”[85]
Ineligible to run for re-election, Carter looked toward a potential presidential run and engaged himself in national politics. He was named to several southern planning commissions and was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention, where liberal United States senator George McGovern was the likely presidential nominee. Carter tried to ingratiate himself with the conservative and anti-McGovern voters. He was fairly obscure at the time, and his attempt at triangulation failed; the 1972 Democratic ticket was McGovern and senator Thomas Eagleton.[86][note 2] On August 3, Carter met with Wallace in Birmingham, Alabama to discuss preventing the Democrats from losing in a landslide during the November elections,[88] but the presidential ticket ended up losing.[89]
Carter would meet regularly with his fledgling campaign staff, and he decided to begin putting a presidential bid for 1976 together. He tried unsuccessfully to become chairman of the National Governors Association to boost his visibility. On David Rockefeller‘s endorsement, he was named to the Trilateral Commission in April 1973. The following year, he was named chairman of both the Democratic National Committee‘s congressional and gubernatorial campaigns.[90] In May 1973, Carter warned his party against politicizing the Watergate scandal,[91] the occurrence of which he attributed to president Richard Nixon exercising isolation from Americans and secrecy in his decision making.[92]
1976 presidential campaign
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On December 12, 1974, Carter announced his presidential campaign at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. His speech contained themes of domestic inequality, optimism, and change.[93][94] Upon his entrance in the Democratic primaries, he was competing against sixteen other candidates, and was considered to have little chance against the more nationally known politicians like Wallace.[95] His name recognition was two percent, and his opponents derisively asked “Jimmy Who?”.[96] In response to this, Carter began to emphasize his name and what he stood for, stating “My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.”[97]
This strategy proved successful. By mid-March 1976, Carter was not only far ahead of the active contenders for the presidential nomination, but against incumbent Republican president Gerald Ford by a few percentage points.[98] As the Watergate scandal was still fresh in the voters’ minds, Carter’s position as an outsider, distant from Washington, D.C. proved helpful. He promoted government reorganization. In June, Carter published a memoir titled Why Not the Best? to help introduce himself to the American public.[99]
Carter became the front-runner early on by winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. His strategy involved reaching a region before another candidate could extend influence there, traveling over 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometres), visiting 37 states, and delivering over 200 speeches before any other candidate had entered the race.[100] In the South, he tacitly conceded certain areas to Wallace and swept them as a moderate when it became clear Wallace could not win it. In the North, Carter appealed largely to conservative Christian and rural voters. Whilst he did not achieve a majority in most Northern states, he won several by building the largest singular support base. Although Carter was initially dismissed as a regional candidate, he would clinch the Democratic nomination.[101] In 1980, Lawrence Shoup noted that the national news media discovered and promoted Carter, and stated:
“What Carter had that his opponents did not was the acceptance and support of elite sectors of the mass communications media. It was their favorable coverage of Carter and his campaign that gave him an edge, propelling him rocket-like to the top of the opinion polls. This helped Carter win key primary election victories, enabling him to rise from an obscure public figure to President-elect in the short space of 9 months.”[102]
During an interview in April 1976, Carter said, “I have nothing against a community that is… trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods.”[103] His remark was intended as supportive of open housing laws, but specifying opposition to government efforts to “inject black families into a white neighborhood just to create some sort of integration“.[103] Carter’s stated positions during his campaign included public financing of congressional campaigns,[104] his support for the creation of a federal consumer protection agency,[105] creating a separate cabinet-level department for education,[106] signing a peace treaty with the Soviet Union to limit nuclear weapons,[107] reducing the defense budget,[108] a tax proposal implementing “a substantial increase toward those who have the higher incomes” alongside a levy reduction on taxpayers with lower and middle incomes,[109] making multiple amendments to the Social Security Act,[110] and having a balanced budget by the end of his first term of office.[111]
The electoral map of the 1976 election
On July 15, 1976, Carter chose U.S. senator Walter Mondale as his running mate.[112] Carter and Ford faced off in three televised debates,[113] the first United States presidential debates since 1960.[113][114] For the November 1976 issue, Carter was interviewed by Robert Scheer of Playboy, which hit the newsstands a couple of weeks before the election. While discussing his religion’s view of pride, Carter said: “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”[115][116] This response and his admission in another interview that he did not mind if people uttered the word “fuck” led to a media feeding frenzy and critics lamenting the erosion of boundary between politicians and their private intimate lives.[117]
Carter began the race with a sizable lead over Ford, who narrowed the gap during the campaign, but lost to Carter in a narrow defeat on November 2, 1976.[118] Carter won the popular vote by 50.1 percent to 48.0 percent for Ford, and received 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 240.[118]
Transition
Preliminary planning for Carter’s presidential transition had already been underway for months before his election.[119][120] Carter had been the first presidential candidate to allot significant funds and a significant number of personnel to a pre-election transition planning effort, which then became standard practice.[121] He set a mold that influenced all future transitions to be larger, more methodical and more formal than they were.[121][120]
On November 22, 1976, Carter conducted his first visit to Washington, D.C. after being elected, meeting with director of the Office of Management James Lynn and United States secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld at the Blair House, and holding an afternoon meeting with President Ford at the White House.[122] The next day, he conferred with congressional leaders, expressing that his meetings with cabinet members had been “very helpful” and saying Ford had requested he seek out his assistance if needing anything.[123] Relations between Ford and Carter were relatively cold during the transition.[124] During his transition, Carter announced the selection of numerous designees for positions in his administration.[125] On January 4, 1977, he told reporters he would free himself from potential conflicts of interest by leaving his peanut business in the hands of trustees.[126]
Presidency (1977–1981)
Carter was inaugurated as the 39th president on January 20, 1977.[127] One of Carter’s first acts was the fulfillment of a campaign promise by issuing an executive order declaring unconditional amnesty for Vietnam War-era draft evaders, Proclamation 4483.[128][129] Carter’s tenure in office was marked by an economic malaise, a time of continuing inflation and recession and a 1979 energy crisis. On January 7, 1980, Carter signed Law H.R. 5860 aka Public Law 96-185, known as The Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979, to bail out the Chrysler Corporation with $3.5 billion (equivalent to $11.51 billion in 2021) in aid.[130]
Carter attempted to calm various conflicts around the world, most visibly in the Middle East with the signing of the Camp David Accords;[131] giving back the Panama Canal to Panama; and signing the SALT II nuclear arms reduction treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. His final year was marred by the Iran hostage crisis, which contributed to his losing the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan.[132]
Domestic policy
U.S. energy crisis
Moralism typified much of his action.[133] On April 18, 1977, Carter delivered a televised speech declaring that the current energy crisis was the “moral equivalent of war”. He encouraged energy conservation and installed solar water heating panels on the White House.[134][135] He wore sweaters to offset turning down the heat in the White House.[136] On August 4, 1977, Carter signed the Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977, forming the Department of Energy, the first new cabinet position in eleven years.[137]
Carter boasted that the House of Representatives had “adopted almost all” of the energy proposal he had made five months prior and called the compromise “a turning point in establishing a comprehensive energy program.”[138] The following month, on October 13, Carter stated he believed in the Senate’s ability to pass the energy reform bill and identified energy as “the most important domestic issue that we will face while I am in office.”[139]
On January 12, 1978, during a press conference, Carter said the continued discussions about his energy reform proposal had been “long and divisive and arduous” as well as hindering to national issues that needed to be addressed with the implementation of the law.[140]
In an April 11, 1978, news conference, Carter said his biggest surprise “in the nature of a disappointment” since becoming president was the difficulty Congress had in passing legislation, citing the energy reform bill in particular: “I never dreamed a year ago in April when I proposed this matter to the Congress that a year later it still would not be resolved.”[141] The Carter energy legislation was approved by Congress after much deliberation and modification on October 15, 1978. The measure deregulated the sale of natural gas, dropped a longstanding pricing disparity between intra- and interstate gas, and created tax credits to encourage energy conservation and the use of non-fossil fuels.[142]
On March 1, 1979, Carter submitted a standby gasoline rationing plan per the request of Congress.[143] On April 5, he delivered an address in which he stressed the urgency of energy conservation and increasing domestic production of energy sources such as coal and solar.[144] During an April 30 news conference, he said it was imperative that the House commerce committee approve the standby gasoline rationing plan and called on Congress to pass the several other standby energy conservation plans he had proposed.[145]
On July 15, 1979, he delivered a nationally televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a “crisis of confidence” among American people,[146] under the advisement of pollster Pat Caddell who believed Americans faced a crisis in confidence from events of the 1960s and 1970s prior to his presidency.[147] Some later called this his “malaise speech”,[146] memorable for mixed reactions[148][149] and his use of rhetoric.[150] The speech’s negative reception centred on a view that he did not emphasize his own efforts to address the energy crisis and seemed too reliant on Americans.[151]
EPA Love Canal Superfund
In 1978, Carter declared a federal emergency in the neighborhood of Love Canal in the city of Niagara Falls, New York. More than 800 families were evacuated from the neighborhood, which had been built on top of a toxic waste landfill. The Superfund law was created in response to the situation.[152] Federal disaster money was appropriated to demolish the approximately 500 houses, the 99th Street School, and the 93rd Street School, which had been built on top of the dump; and to remediate the dump and construct a containment area for the hazardous wastes. This was the first time that such a process had been undertaken. Carter acknowledged that several more “Love Canals” existed across the country, and that discovering such hazardous dumpsites was “one of the grimmest discoveries of our modern era”.[153]
Poor relations with Congress
Carter typically refused to conform to Washington’s rules.[154] He avoided phone calls from members of Congress and verbally insulted them. He was unwilling to return political favors. His negativity led to frustration in passing legislation.[155] During a press conference on February 23, 1977, Carter stated that it was “inevitable” that he would come into conflict with Congress and added that he had found “a growing sense of cooperation” with Congress and met in the past with congressional members of both parties.[156] Carter developed a bitter feeling following an unsuccessful attempt at having Congress enact the scrapping of several water projects,[157] which he had requested during his first 100 days in office and received opposition from members of his party.[158]
As a rift ensued between the White House and Congress afterward, Carter noted that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party was most ardently against his policies, attributing this to Ted Kennedy’s wanting the presidency.[159] Carter, thinking he had support from 74 Congressmen, issued a “hit list” of 19 projects that he claimed were “pork barrel” spending that he claimed would result in a veto on his part if included in any legislation.[160] He found himself at odds with Congressional Democrats once more, with speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill finding it inappropriate for a president to pursue what had traditionally been the role of Congress. Carter was also weakened by signing a bill that contained many of the “hit list” projects he intended to cancel.[161]
In an address to a fundraising dinner for the Democratic National Committee on June 23, 1977, Carter said, “I think it’s good to point out tonight, too, that we have evolved a good working relationship with the Congress. For eight years we had government by partisanship. Now we have government by partnership.”[162] At a July 28 news conference, assessing the first six months of his presidency, Carter spoke of his improved understanding of Congress: “I have learned to respect the Congress more in an individual basis. I’ve been favorably impressed at the high degree of concentrated experience and knowledge that individual members of Congress can bring on a specific subject, where they’ve been the chairman of a subcommittee or committee for many years and have focused their attention on this particular aspect of government life which I will never be able to do.”[163]
On May 10, 1979, the House voted against giving Carter authority to produce a standby gas rationing plan.[164] The following day, Carter delivered remarks in the Oval Office describing himself as shocked and embarrassed for the American government by the vote and concluding “the majority of the House Members are unwilling to take the responsibility, the political responsibility for dealing with a potential, serious threat to our Nation.” He furthered that a majority of House members were placing higher importance on “local or parochial interests” and challenged the lower chamber of Congress with composing their own rationing plan in the next 90 days.[165]
Carter’s remarks were met with criticism by House Republicans, who accused his comments of not befitting the formality a president should have in their public remarks. Others pointed to 106 Democrats voting against his proposal and the bipartisan criticism potentially coming back to haunt him.[166] At the start of a news conference on July 25, 1979, Carter called on believers in the future of the U.S. and his proposed energy program to speak with Congress as it bore the responsibility to impose his proposals.[167] Amid the energy proposal opposition, The New York Times commented that “as the comments flying up and down Pennsylvania Avenue illustrate, there is also a crisis of confidence between Congress and the President, sense of doubt and distrust that threatens to undermine the President’s legislative program and become an important issue in next year’s campaign.”[168]
Economy
Carter’s presidency had a troubled economic history of two roughly equal periods. The first two years were a time of continuing recovery from the severe 1973–75 recession, which had left fixed investment at its lowest level since the 1970 recession and unemployment at 9%.[169] His last two years were marked by double-digit inflation, coupled with very high interest rates,[170] oil shortages, and slow economic growth.[171] Due to the $30 billion economic stimulus legislation – such as the Public W
