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The great give away president. massive cuts in military spending and still found a way to increase over all spending.
His SALT II negotiations would have given the USSR a massive advantage over the USA. As others have said he resided over inflation high interest rates and pretty much was a joke. A bad joke but a joke none the less.
In all fairness, you cannot hold a President responsible for spending. As bad as Carter was, it was the Democrat controlled Congress that was responsible for all spending, not Carter.
The National Debt went up 23% while Carter was President, but he also had a Democrat controlled House and Senate that not only gutted the military, as you said, but also massively increased social spending. While Democrats controlled the House, MediCare/MedicAid spending increased by over 400%.
I do not blame any President, not even Obama, for the out of control deficit spending. I blame those who are constitutionally responsible for all federal spending - primarily the House, but also the Senate.
I was not around when he was the president, but I notice conservatives always mock him. Was he that bad of a president?
Three things set Carter apart as a very poor president:
1. The Soviet grain embargo. Instead of using other tools of diplomacy, Carter chose to punish America's farmers in a misguided attempt to teach the Russians a lesson. Russia simply bought from others in the world market; the US was screwed.
2. Cancelling US involvement in the Olympics. Again, thrash a group of Americans to make a point to a country that was not about to pay attention anyway.
3. The "malaise" speech (which interestingly never used the word "malaise") in which he outlined a pessimistic vision of a reduced America.
Carter's presidency should have taught us that good intentions as a foundation for terrible policies is no way to govern. Hopefully we'll remember that in November 2012.
Yeah the malaise speech was probably the most important as far as politics goes. Americans are a fragile bunch must have their egos stroked at every possible opportunity. Speak to them like adults and you've just lost whatever election you were running for.
The US had a lease on the Panama Canal from Columbia, in perpetuity, since 1903 and Carter simply gave it away. I was certain he would give away Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba, but he lost the 1980 election before that could happen, thankfully.
Carter was a very good man, which is precisely why he made such a poor president.
More than Truman? I don't remember many countries falling to communism in the late 70s besides Afghanistan.
Yes, more than Truman. Besides Afghanistan in 1978 there were:
Angola;
Benin;
Cambodia;
Grenada;
Kampuchea;
Laos;
Mozambique; and
South Vietnam.
Carter beats Truman by one nation, if you count Greece (two if you do not). Under Truman China, North Korea, Bulgaria, Greece (for only two years), Hungary, Poland, Romania, and North Vietnam became communist nations.
I was not around when he was the president, but I notice conservatives always mock him. Was he that bad of a president?
He was a dunce.
He mucked up Iran. Smith had everything all set up. All Carter had to do was roll out the red-carpet for Khomeini and everything would have been peachy. Instead he let neo-cons Sick and Brzezinski talk him into sending General Hugyens there to whip up the Iran military into taking over the country in a coup.
Then he mucked up the Hostage "Crisis." The best thing that ever happened was 8 servicemen died in the desert. If they hadn't died there, all of the hostages would have died, a few hundred troops would have a died and so would a few hundred Iranians, and all for nothing.
Then he let neo-cons Sick and Brzezinski talk him into believing the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.
Then he let the liar Woodward convince him not to deploy ERWs to Europe. If he had deployed them, it's likely the Soviets would have scaled back deployment of the SS-20s (Reagan ended up secretly deploying ERWs anyway).
The country was starting to creep into runaway Real Inflation because of the spending during Vietnam and the Grotesque Society, and he let the Democrats just spend a way. It took Reagan and Volker 6 years to get all the excess money the Democrats spent out of the system.
The only redeeming value of Carter is that he did authorize the deployment of the BGM-109Gs and the Pershing IIs to Europe, plus funded development of the Pershing IIB and IIC (although they were never deployed). That doesn't really say much because if he hadn't, then Reagan would have.
There's hundreds of other things. He let the Democrats pass legislation that allowed the banks to start offering other financial services. That's what led to the personal debt mess with credit cards.
Carter also created the Big Health Care Bang. At that time you had only 16 "health insurance" companies in the whole US (11 national and 5 regional -- and 6 of them were not-for-profit "health insurance" companies). The funny thing was "health insurance" was interstate commerce at that time. It was only later when it exploded to 800+ "health insurance" companies that States started regulating it (shifting it to intra-state commerce). That, in addition to a few other factors, led to a lot of bankruptcies and mergers/acquisitions which eventually knocked the number down to 600+ "health insurance" companies. That's also when the illegal Hospital Carters started to emerge and illegally collude to illegally fix prices.
Carter was actually more experienced than Obama. He was governor of Georgia, of course Georgia in the late 1960s/early 1970s was nothing like it is now.
Yeah the malaise speech was probably the most important as far as politics goes. Americans are a fragile bunch must have their egos stroked at every possible opportunity. Speak to them like adults and you've just lost whatever election you were running for.
It is always better to be an optimist and wrong, than a pessimist and correct.
Carter was actually more experienced than Obama. He was governor of Georgia, of course Georgia in the late 1960s/early 1970s was nothing like it is now.
That is certainly true. Carter had executive experience, and he was honest. Extremely naive and inexperienced in foreign policy, but honest.
In all fairness, you cannot hold a President responsible for spending. As bad as Carter was, it was the Democrat controlled Congress that was responsible for all spending, not Carter.
The National Debt went up 23% while Carter was President, but he also had a Democrat controlled House and Senate that not only gutted the military, as you said, but also massively increased social spending. While Democrats controlled the House, MediCare/MedicAid spending increased by over 400%.
I do not blame any President, not even Obama, for the out of control deficit spending. I blame those who are constitutionally responsible for all federal spending - primarily the House, but also the Senate.
Fair enough but then thats why the president has the power of veto.
The 1 thing Ill say for carter was him putting the brakes on selling state of the art military hardware.
He gets 2 thumbs up for that .
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I was certain he would give away Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba, but he lost the 1980 election before that could happen, thankfully.
