1. #1

    Meet President Carter: Radical Right Wing Conservative

    Perhaps the most fascinating legacies of the more recent presidents is that of Jimmy Carter. I say this because it is in the best interests of BOTH democrats and republicans to lie about his legacy and what he did. History is written with a political slant, so not even the history books will get him right either.

    Unless you actually look for yourself at specifically what Jimmy Carter did during his 4 years...

    Jimmy Carter was arguably the most pro-business, pro-free enterprise president we've had since before FDR. This guy didn't just cut government regulations. He slashed and burned them to fix the economy. If you care to look, there is a laundry list of MAJOR pro-business reforms Carter rammed through to destroy government regulations.

    Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act

    Carter went to war against labor unions on this piece of legislation. The airlines were a mess. There was massive bureaucratic red tape preventing airlines from changing routes or fares efficiently, designed not to help customers but to protect unions. Carter declared the problem was too much government. The Act cut regulations and increased competition. It worked. Between 1976 and 1990, airfares fell 30 percent and service dramatically improved.

    Jimmy Carter signed the Motor Carrier Act of 1980
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Carrier_Act_of_1980

    Just as he did with the airline industry, Jimmy Carter attacked unions in the trucking industry. Upon signing it, Carter said:

    "This is historic legislation. It will remove 45 years of excessive and inflationary Government restrictions and redtape. It will have a powerful anti-inflationary effect, reducing consumer costs by as much as $8 billion each year. And by ending wasteful practices, it will conserve annually hundreds of millions of gallons of precious fuel. All the citizens of our Nation will benefit from this legislation. Consumers will benefit, because almost every product we purchase has been shipped by truck, and outmoded regulations have inflated the prices that each one of us must pay. The shippers who use trucking will benefit as new service and price options appear. Labor will benefit from increased job opportunities. And the trucking industry itself will benefit from greater flexibility and new opportunities for innovation."

    Before Carter signed the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 into law, price-fixing and regulated routes was as much as 75% higher than unregulated freight.

    Jimmy Carter signed the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroa...ory_Reform_Act
    Jimmy Carter signed the Staggers Rail Act of 1980
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staggers_Rail_Act

    These acts did the same for the railroad industry as the previous Acts did for Airlines and Trucking. They attacked the Railroad unions in favor of better pricing for customers and lower barriers to entry. To accomplish this goal, it undid major parts of the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act.

    Jimmy Carter Signed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit...ry_Control_Act

    This cut a ton of red tape about banking.

    1. It allowed banks to merge
    2. It undid a key part of Glass Steagall by removing the government's power to set maximum interest rates.
    3. It gave credit unions and Savings and Loans more powers.
    4. It allowed banks to charge any interest rates they choose.

    =========================

    All of these deregulation moves helped spur the giant economic boom America experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Massive deregulation generates massive sustained growth. This is proven. But neither democrats nor republicans have any vested interest in actually giving Jimmy Carter credit for it.

    Republicans don't want to give Carter credit because they want to be known as the pro-business party. They want to hold up Reagan as the hero, and Carter as the failure he vanquished. This is the history they want to tell. So they spin the facts. They never talk about how, in many ways, Carter was to the right of Reagan. Reagan never rammed thru radical pro-business reforms the size and scope that Carter did. So they just ignore it and tell us about the pro-business policies Reagan adopted.

    Democrats have absolutely NO interest in telling the truth about Carter, either. The democrat base is anti-business, pro-government, and definitely pro-regulation and pro-union. Carter's economic fixes, fixes that actually WORKED, are exactly opposite of what Obama is trying to do. Obama is trying to increase government control, increase government regulations. So they have to lie about Carter, too. So as it turns out, democrats are probably happy to just avoid talking about the Carter presidency altogether, because his presidency proves that pretty much the entire Obama economic plan is not just garbage but dangerously hurtful to the US economy.

    Carter himself has to privately think Obama is a complete idiot, given how Carter governed. But he cannot say that publicly. He has to show party unity. I'm sure Carter would love to pull Obama aside and tell him he needs to cut regulation deeply to get this economy moving again, or else we'll never see the end of this anemic growth, we'll probably fall into an even deeper recession instead and generation Y will be a lost generation. But there's no way he can do that.

    Politics is crazy.

  2. #2
    I love that man. Carter certainly was one of the better presidents. God bless his soul.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Not Helping View Post
    I love that man. Carter certainly was one of the better presidents. God bless his soul.
    Sarcasm has been detected in the area.

  4. #4
    Merely a Setback Reeve's Avatar
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    Interestingly, the airline industry is worse now than it was even then. It may be getting a little better in the last couple of years, but you don't buy an airline company to make money.
    'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
    Or a yawing hole in a battered head
    And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
    And there they lay I damn me eyes
    All lookouts clapped on Paradise
    All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Reeve View Post
    Interestingly, the airline industry is worse now than it was even then. It may be getting a little better in the last couple of years, but you don't buy an airline company to make money.
    Airlines haven't been the same since 9/11. And since then fuel costs have kicked their asses something fierce.

  6. #6
    Merely a Setback Reeve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rukentuts View Post
    Airlines haven't been the same since 9/11. And since then fuel costs have kicked their asses something fierce.
    Well a big part of the problem is that the legacy carriers were, until their bankruptcies, still saddled with a lot of union rules and restrictions without having the protections that regulations before Carter provided that allowed them to charge enough to cover those costs. Now that they've pretty much all gone bankrupt, they can change their service to match their price point a bit better, making it so that many of the legacy carriers are in better position than some of the newer players in labor cost terms.

    And yes, variations in fuel costs can kick airlines' asses, but there are tools they have now to help them deal with that.

    Here's a nice podcast on the whole thing:

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/...rline-business
    'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
    Or a yawing hole in a battered head
    And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
    And there they lay I damn me eyes
    All lookouts clapped on Paradise
    All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

  7. #7
    I saw some people bashing Jimmy Carter so I thought its a good time to remind people of the great work he did not just as a humanitarian but in cutting government. Carter was a victim of politics. He governed as a republican but ran as a democrat. Democrats divorced themselves from his policies, and republicans observed how Carter cut government and just slyly handed Reagan all the credit for it. He lacked alliances on both sides so they labelled him "worst president ever" when he arguably was the best president of the 20th century.

    If Jimmy Carter had a R next to his name, republicans would likely be building monuments to him. But politics is a strange beast.

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