Obama: Running for Jimmy Carter’s 2nd term

http://spectator.org/archives/2008/05/13/jimmy-carters-second-term/

consider the similarities to 1976…

after 8 years of a republican presidency, the last 4 of which were unpopular, you have a relatively unknown and short on experience (1 term Georgia governor and otherwise career peanut farmer-hey at least he had actually run a sucessful business) Democrat running for President against an old guard Republican.  The congress is heavily democrat in the senate and house. 

the difference between now and then is we have Obama running on ideas that already failed once but since nearly a generation has passed young people don’t know anything about Carter and his disaster of a presidency and are apparently willing to try his ideas again.  What ideas were they?

Essentially typical liberal ideas:

raising corporate taxes/taxes in general–when you make a disincentive to creating wealth you will of course find that people will stop growing their business and thus stop offering new jobs.  I mean why work hard or bother taking any risks to make more money when the govt is going to take 40-50% of what you make?  Obama wants to raise corp taxes on businesses making over $250k.  with America already having the 2nd highest corp tax rate in the world, what do you think this will do to jobs?  there was high unemployment in the carter years, to nearly 8%.  why do we punish people who create jobs?  how many people here have been offered a job from a poor person?

no energy solutions–oil shortages and extremely high oil prices in the 1970s–what was Carter’s solution to fix the problem? conservation–the malaise speech, asked Americans to do with a lower standard of living. new energy sources–hey Carter/Obama alternative energy is great but when you punish companies that make energy now, how are they going to find new sources and with what money?  just give them the same money you took(windfall profits tax) i guess.  the problem was not solved under Carter and actually got worse.  the high energy costs led too…inflation–rose from 4.8% in 1976 to 6.8% in 1977, 9% in 1978, 11% in 1979, and hovered around 12% at the time of the 1980 election.  led to the creation of the misery index-a combination of unemployment and inflation.  fully expect that back during an Obama presidency.

foreign policy–carter’s foreign policy was arguably the worst part of his presidency.  gave away the panama canal, reduced military spending in the midst of the cold war…Soviets invaded Afganistan (certainly didnt fear any American intervention…), the iran hostage crisis, the Ayatolla establishing a Shi”ite government that exists today–helped foster immense hatred toward America and has even been looked upon as a possible beginning to 9/11 events.  a lot of carter’s mistakes came about because of his overiding focus on human rights rather than more pressing issues.

http://www.issues2000.org/Celeb/Jimmy_Carter_Budget_+_Economy.htm

http://www.sparknotes.com/101/us_history_two/carter_and_reagan/the_presidency_of_jimmy_carter.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/24/opinion/main4544140.shtml?source=RSSattr=Opinion_4544140

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i suppose one good thing could come out of an Obama presidency…another Reagan to save us?