President James E. Carter, 1977-1985.

[Alcuin]

Wait a minute. How could the General Secretary of the Communist party of the Soviet Union have believed in God?

Who knows? Maybe Jimmy Carter was converting him, or maybe he was trying to manipulate Carter. We'll never know.

That said, there's nothing in Communism to make it necessarily incompatible with religion. Even Marx's famous quote, "Religion is the opiATE of the people" (not opium) could be taken as a positive, since opiates (as opposed to opium) were not seen as addictive in the 19th century (Britain made heroin illegal in 1953) but as pain-killers.

 

[alt_historian]

Short answer: before the last debate, Carter and Reagan were neck-and-neck in the polls. Have either this debate get canceled (Carter originally didn't want to do ANY debates), or get Reagan to act like a doddering old guy like he did in several other debates. The last debate lost Carter the election.



If his first term was anything to go by *urp*...as far as I can tell, no president's second term has been as good as his first.
..quote]

OK, consider this: I'm over in the UK. Also, I wasn't even born when this guy was president, and I don't know much about recent US history. Not my area. What was so bad about Carter?

 

[Douglas]

OK, consider this: I'm over in the UK. Also, I wasn't even born when this guy was president, and I don't know much about recent US history. Not my area. What was so bad about Carter?

Carter was inept at foreign policy: his only success was mediating an agreement between Egypt and Israel. He oversaw a serious weakening of the US' position abroad (although it can't be entirely blamed on him). The Panama Canal was signed away, his response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was considered weak, and, of course, his handling of the Iranian Hostage Crisis was miserable.

Perhaps more importantly, however, the Carter administration saw some of the worst figures for the US economy since the Great Depression. As AMBOMB said, a 0.78% increase for the US economy in two years is TERRIBLE.

 

[alt_historian]

Carter was inept at foreign policy: his only success was mediating an agreement between Egypt and Israel. He oversaw a serious weakening of the US' position abroad (although it can't be entirely blamed on him). The Panama Canal was signed away, his response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was considered weak, and, of course, his handling of the Iranian Hostage Crisis was miserable.

Perhaps more importantly, however, the Carter administration saw some of the worst figures for the US economy since the Great Depression. As AMBOMB said, a 0.78% increase for the US economy in two years is TERRIBLE.

K then. Anyone else on the board really disagree with this? I'd like to hear dissenting opinions if they're out there.

 

[Electric Monk]

On the upside Carter began the deregulation of the economy that Reagan carried on (and got all the credit for). So yes, economic growth sucked but he also began the process to fix it.

Other then that I have nothing good to say about the man…

 

[violadog]

On the upside Carter began the deregulation of the economy that Reagan carried on (and got all the credit for). So yes, economic growth sucked but he also began the process to fix it.

Other then that I have nothing good to say about the man…

IMHO you might also add that at least he was an fairly decent, honest man. He didn't have any major scandals, he didn't involve the US in disastrous wars, through his foreign policy left something to be desired. But overall, he probably have been considered a better president if he had ruled in the peace and prosperity of the 1990s or the Gilded Age.

 

[Electric Monk]

I can also add that his staff invented the idea of the Permanent Campaign and I am duly grateful as it will mean more work for me when I graduate.

Alright, point made, I was being a little harsh on the man.

rant

Still he had a golden opportunity to make the Democratic Party relevant as an alternative (I'll argue day and night that Clinton was at best a decent Republican president most of the time) and Carter didn't the way—say—RFK likely would have had had he lived. A Democratic party that stuck with JFK's supply-side economics (even if that's not what JFK intended and the idea of national service? That would have been great, especially if RFK could have tackled the urban problem.

Instead you get the Republican Party run by ex-Democrats[1] or the Democratic Party itself which doesn't have much in the way of ideas[2] and runs screaming from sound economic policy.

Neither is much of a choice, quite frankly and Carter's inability to articulate or have coherent policy (plus his neglect of the legislative Democrats) is a major reason why the Democratic Party didn't offer an alternative or skipped over their reformers (Gary Hart) until Clinton's Republican-lite.


Carter's a nice, honest, decent, somewhat misguided man, basically.



[1] Neoconservatives are ex-Democrats. The religious southern base are also ex-Democrats. Neither care about sound economic policy like balanced budgets or civil liberties the way old-school Republicans do (Dole, for example, would have balanced the budget in 1985 if Reagan hadn't caved into that bum Kemp in the House—Reagan, to be fair, did bring supply-side economics into play. The general increase in tax receipts across the board [yes, paradoxically lowering the rate of tax on the rich generates more tax money from them] were lost in the vast increases in defence spending, though).

So with Bush 43 you get a Republican administration which is (according to the old Republican brand) nominally pro-small government, libertarian-leaning, and fiscally sound on budgets and tax policy that instead massively expands the government, attacks civil liberties, and destroys fiscal responsibility by spending a heck of a lot more then they were making (the tax cut did actually increase general revenue though).

[2] Aside from pulling out of Iraq and universal health coverage plans.

/rant We return to the realm of people who aren't as obsessed as I with politics, economics, and the future

 

[HueyLong]

Who knows? Maybe Jimmy Carter was converting him, or maybe he was trying to manipulate Carter. We'll never know.

That said, there's nothing in Communism to make it necessarily incompatible with religion. Even Marx's famous quote, "Religion is the opiATE of the people" (not opium) could be taken as a positive, since opiates (as opposed to opium) were not seen as addictive in the 19th century (Britain made heroin illegal in 1953) but as pain-killers.

Opiates were viewed as addictive and as being something to dull the senses to death, pain and misery.

Giving someone morphine in the era was generally just a way to give them a quiet death, to stop their gibbering as they bled out.

Gotta love historiography..... Marx was anti-religion, there is no way to take that quote as a positive thing. Oh, and there was definitely something in Soviet Communism against religion.

 

[alt_historian]

...
The general increase in tax receipts across the board [yes, paradoxically lowering the rate of tax on the rich generates more tax money from them] were lost in the vast increases in defence spending, though...

I'd really like to see you prove that. Rather than just saying that it's true, I mean.

 

[Electric Monk]

Here you go.

The major tax cuts in US history:

Chart the one showing 1920s. and the effect on the rich.

Chart the second showing 1960s and the effect on the rich.

Chart the third showing 1980s and the effect on the rich.

Summary:

Lesson #1: Lower tax rates do not mean less tax revenue.

The tax cuts of the 1920s: Personal income tax revenues increased substantially during the 1920s despite the reduction in rates. Revenues rose from $719 million in 1921 to $1.164 billion in 1928, an increase of more than 61 percent (during a period of virtually no inflation).

The Kennedy tax cuts: Tax revenues climbed from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusting for inflation).

The Reagan tax cuts: Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s. The results are even more impressive, however, when one looks at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, personal income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).

Lesson #2: The rich pay more when incentives to hide income are reduced.

The tax cuts of the 1920s: The share of the tax burden paid by the rich rose dramatically as tax rates fell. The share of the tax burden borne by the rich (those making $50,000 and up in those days) climbed from 44.2 percent in 1921 to 78.4 percent in 1928.[1]

The Kennedy tax cuts: Just as happened in the 1920s, the share of the income tax burden borne by the rich increased following the tax cuts. Tax collections from those earning more than $50,000 per year climbed by 57 percent between 1963 and 1966, while tax collections from those earning below $50,000 rose 11 percent. As a result, the rich saw their portion of the income tax burden climb from 11.6 percent to 15.1 percent.[2]

The Reagan tax cuts: The share of income taxes paid by the top 10 percent of earners jumped significantly, climbing from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. The top 1 percent of taxpayers saw their share of the income tax bill climb even more dramatically, from 17.6 percent in 1981 to 27.5 percent in 1988.

[1] Joint Economic Committee, "The Mellon and Kennedy Tax Cuts: A Review and Analysis," June 18, 1982

[2] Ibid.

 

[larryrmoore]

Jimmy Carter (1977-1985)

Don't see it happening for a second term. first of all, his handling of the hostage crisis showed his political incompetence. second, he did nothing to show the american people he could effectively lead the USA. Now, let's jump forward to the subject of Ronald Reagan, and how fast theose hostages were released. They were terrified of Ronald Reagan, because he would have unleashed the total military might of the US military, and here is how I think he would have done it: immediately after being sworn in as President, he would addressed the nation and the world, letting everyon know that within the 24/48 hours, the american hotages would be released, all of them alive, and turned over at a designated neutral site. American military sources would have blockaded Iran, by land/sea/air to emphasize our position. Once the hostages were freed, Iran would have been given another 48 hours to surrender every Islamic cleric/terrorist involved in taking the hostages, or Iran as a whole would have been bombed into a big pile of rubble, period. No discussion, no debate, no delays. That is the example of what a powerful & dynamic president should do. Jimmy Carter would never have been able to do that...

 

[luakel]

OK, I tried to reply in depth to your post over in Gore thread, but your one here is just... well, it's an attempt to completely miss the point of the thread (which you dismiss in 2 sentences) in order to wank over how SuperReagan would bomb Iran back to the Stone Age if they dared to keep defying American glory when there wasn't a wimpy librul in office (which takes up the rest of your post). Not to mention that you thinking that killing millions (not to mention the hostages themselves) would be a good idea, and in fact what a "powerful and dynamic president should do".

 

[Alcuin]

Opiates were viewed as addictive and as being something to dull the senses to death, pain and misery.

Giving someone morphine in the era was generally just a way to give them a quiet death, to stop their gibbering as they bled out.

Gotta love historiography..... Marx was anti-religion, there is no way to take that quote as a positive thing. Oh, and there was definitely something in Soviet Communism against religion.

The first part is simply untrue. Addiction to opiates was NOT something considered in the nineteenth century because as you point out in para two, people getting morphine were usually dying. The part about them dulling the senses to death, pain and misery is exactly what Marx was talking about, and it's something that is necessarily neutral. Without changing it to opium, there is no way to make that quote anything but a statement that religion takes away the pain without solving the problems. Such a statement is neutral because it applies just as easily to art or music as it does to religion.

As for the Soviet Union, it encouraged the Orthodox Church against others in exactly the same way that the Tsarists had. The fact that the communists persecuted specific religions does not necessarily mean in itself, that they were unable to use religion for their own purposes.

 

[Mark]

Carter's big problem wasn't his foreign policy, but his lack of a positive vision for America. His solution to the energy crisis was to lower the temperature in the White House and encourage us to wear sweaters. America would have to accept that we were decending into the second tier of nations (as demonstrated by the rescue attempt). And then there was the Killer Rabbit (, thus demonstrating that the media chasing silly stories isn't new).
Reagan boosted American spirits by saying he would make things better. I forgot what Anderson said.

And now to date myself, we ran a mock election in my high school government class that year. As I recall, much of the Carter "support" was more anti-Reagan/Republican that pro-Carter.

I can't remember whether Anderson pulled more support from Democrats or Republicans, but fiddling with his run may be the way to get a second term for Carter.