Jimmy Carter's Greatest Failure

Today, we remember Jimmy Carter as a good man, an excellent ex-President , and a poor president. Although Carter’s post-Presidency activities have been extremely successful - the foundation of the Carter Center, teaching at Emory University in Georgia, contributing to the expansion of Habitat for Humanity, and other humanitarian endeavors - his rating when he left office was only 34 percent. He left behind him the Iran Hostage Crisis, poor relations with Congress, and a confused and faltering foreign policy. I propose that Carter’s two greatest failures are his dealings with the Iran Hostage Crisis and his complete lack of a cohesive domestic policy.

Jimmy Carter was a one-term president who won on a campaign of being “not Washington,” “not Republican,” and “not Gerald Ford.” This lack of a campaign policy led to a spectacularly poor domestic policy.

Being a Washington outside was not merely a tenant of Carter’s campaign. Shortly after entering office, his refusal to trade political favors, his unwillingness to learn the rules of Washington politics, and the general insults and lack of communication stalled any possible relationship with Congress. Shortly into his term, Carter issued a

The 1979 energy crisis ended the recovery, as job creation and economic growth declined and the price of crude oil doubled, leading to a shortage of gasoline. President Carter requested price controls from Congress, but was unable to pass such measures due to a strongly opposed Congress. Carter went so far as to call OPEC’s actions “the moral equivalent of war.” It was during this 1979-1980 period that Carter attempted to deregulate the oil industry by slowly removing governmental controls of oil allocation, and asked Congress to pass a “Windfall Profit Tax” as he believed his deregulation of the oil industry would enable oil companies to raise profits to an “undeserving