From Intellectual Conservative:

The year 1980 was considered a bellwether year in presidential politics. America was firmly caught up in the economic and foreign policy nightmare that was the Carter Administration. The prime rate was 20.5%, inflation was running at 14.8%, unemployment was a then record 10.8%, the 30 year mortgage rate was a staggering 18.5% and gas prices (adjusted to 2008 dollars) were $3.45 a gallon. The soviet invasion of Afghanistan had given President Carter reason to boycott the 1980 Olympic Games. Oh, and let’s not leave out the surrendering control of the Panama Canal. Carter’s mistakes were legion

As of Election Day, November 4th 1980, 52 Americans had been held hostage in Iran for exactly one year. The highlight of their captivity was a botched administration rescue attempt that resulted in the deaths of eight American soldiers and the loss of three American aircraft.

The Democrats had considered President Carter’s administration such a failure that they actually fielded a candidate against him in the primaries for his re-election. In the general election of 1980 Ronald Reagan won the popular vote 50.7% to 41%, carried 44 states to Carter’s 6 and led in the Electoral College 489 to 49. The Iranian hostages were released 20 minutes after President Reagan was sworn into office.

The catastrophe that was the Carter Administration has had its shortcomings analyzed almost to death. Rising energy prices and stagflation marked his time in office. His infamous “Malaise Speech” in which he basically said that the country’s problems weren’t his administration’s fault, but rather the fault of the American people, was the apex of hubris. One only has to look at the twin disasters of the creation of the Departments of Education and Energy to realize he was a policy wonk gone mad.

The Department of Education’s proposed budget for 2011 is $50.7 billion. Since its inception under President Carter subsequent administrations have sunk over $700 billion into the Department of Education for absolutely no discernible return on that investment.

The Department of Energy is no better. The current appropriation for 2011 is over $28 billion. We’ve collectively thrown over $500 billion into this department since its beginnings. For that kind of money, I should have a flying car a la the Jetsons and it should run on water. Where’s my flying car? Over $1.2 trillion wasted within these two boondoggles and neither education policy nor energy policy has any crowning achievement to point to.

The calamity that was Carter so affected the American people it was twelve years before we could be lulled, once again, into allowing a liberal to hold the reins of presidential power. Bill Clinton’s second term recovery after a disastrous first term fooled Republicans into believing that his “Third Way” triangulation scheme could actually work. George Bush the lesser’s “compassionate conservatism” almost buried the Republicans. His insistence on cooperation with progressives on such policy debacles as No Child Left Behind, served to do nothing but embolden the left to urge him to continue spending and to ignore deficits. Such reckless monetary policy eventually led to Democratic takeovers of the House and Senate in 2006 and set the stage for the nightmare we are all living now.

By 2008 the Republican brand was so sullied that in a fit of rebellion the American Public voted for change. On January 20th, 2009 Barack Obama was sworn into Office in a traditional ceremony and that was the end of that.

These two men, Obama and Carter, are so eerily similar. Both are Nobel Peace Prize winning apologists for America’s strength. Both exhibit not only exasperation with American dominance on the world stage, but both believe they can talk any foreign belligerent into cooperation. Neither of them has any idea how to use the US military to project power, and both believe Americans are an ignorant, hapless people that need the guidance of an authoritative federal government to guide each and every aspect of their lives.

Barack Obama and his administration quickly developed a reputation for something that has not set well with the American public: Either defying common sense, recorded evidence, the rule of law, public sentiment or all at once, the Obama administration can be counted upon to do whatever it wants and then justify those actions by whatever means that presents itself.

One of President Obama’s first executive decisions was the $787 billion “stimulus package.” Despite conventional wisdom that says government cannot create wealth, only confiscate it from those that do, we were assured that this spending would halt the recession, stem unemployment, and invigorate the economy. None of this turned out to be true. The really amazing part of this was, even as the White House’s own website was shown to be allocating stimulus dollars to congressional districts that didn’t exist, and spending excessive amounts of capital to save only one or two supposed jobs, they continued to spend; even as the unemployment rate passed 9.5% and credit remained frozen for the overwhelming majority of Americans.

The administration’s Making Homes Affordable program is a $75 billion project that was supposed to help millions of Americans avoid foreclosure. Now it is revealed that over a third of the 1.24 million borrowers who have enrolled in this mortgage modification program have dropped out. That exceeds the number of people who have actually managed to have their loan payments reduced to help them keep their homes. Last month alone, 155,000 borrowers left the program – bringing the total to 436,000 who have dropped out since it began in March 2009.

Early on in his administration President Obama decided that the federal government would seize both GM and Chrysler. During this process he excoriated the managers of investment funds that had secured loan positions against company assets as greedy profiteers, not bothering to consider that these fund managers ultimately represented the 401(k) programs of teachers, plumbers, policemen, and other working stiffs that were building retirement funds. In a clear disregard for settled law, he turned 100 years of bankruptcy law upside down and gave the UAW a superior position for compensation of their unsecured debt over the secured debt of the investors.

Next there’s the debacle that has inherited the moniker Obamacare. The law is considered by many to be unconstitutional in that it is basically a federal mandate that all citizens must purchase a specific product (medical insurance). From the beginning, a clear majority of American citizens were opposed to the legislation. Not only that but it defies logic to promise people that the government will lower costs while artificially flooding the market with millions of new customers. Yet, Obama persisted with this train wreck anyway.

In case you’ve been on sabbatical for the last couple of months we have an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. We’ll save the debate over why we’ve placed so many other sites off limits to oil exploration that companies are forced into drilling in 5,000 feet of water for another day. We’ll just concentrate on the myriad of mis-steps the administration has committed. For the first week or so there was little comment from the White House regarding the Deep Horizon disaster. As the problem worsened we find that there were things that could have been done by the administration that were not. For one, they could have suspended the Jones Act which would have allowed foreign flagged vessels to assist in the skimming of oil. Not only wasn’t this done immediately, to my knowledge, it has yet to be done at all. Now, according to Florida Senator George LeMieux we find out that oil skimming and boom equipment from other parts of the US have been deliberately withheld from being deployed to the Gulf because they might be needed where they are located. Imagine the howls of rage if George Bush had told Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu that helicopters could not be deployed to Louisiana because they might be needed elsewhere?

When the President finally deigns to address the American Public regarding the oil spill from the Oval Office; he uses the opportunity to press Congress for approval of his cap and trade bill citing the disaster in the Gulf as reason enough to proceed with his “green” energy legislation. Talk about Alice through the looking glass!

Finally, in a move that had more in common with Al Capone than the Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama shook down BP executives for $20 billion worth of company assets in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. I was functioning under the impression this was a constitutional republic and that the assets of a person or corporation being forcibly removed without a judgment was unconstitutional. Apparently; just like with GM, health care, and a raft of other extra legal dealings issued from this administration; I don’t know what I’m talking about.

The American Public has quickly lost and continues to lose confidence in this President. This is abundantly clear from the plethora of plunging poll numbers. With such clear indications of the magnitude of problems citizens have with this president’s agenda, you would think that he’d be contemplating a change in course like Clinton did in 1996. Word on the street is that Barack Obama is actually searching for ways to saddle the nation with the rest of his redistributionist agenda more quickly.

There is speculation that President Obama may be seeking to parole or “defer action” on millions of illegal aliens via executive order. A situation that, according to former Obama adviser and executive president of the SEIU Eliseo Medina would eventually expand the “progressive” electorate and help ensure a “progressive” governing coalition for the long term. “We reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if we have, even the same ratio, two out of three? Can you imagine 8 million new voters who care about our issues and will be voting? We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”

There are also reports that the Obama Administration would prefer that, once the elections are held, the lame duck congress would utilize its majorities to pass cap and trade legislation before the newly elected body is seated.

The economy is damaged as it is. To ask it to also absorb health care and cap & trade on top of the tragedy in the Gulf will put economic recovery permanently out of reach. As it stands now the economy will have to create 300,000 new jobs each month for the next four years to get us back to where we were before Mr. Obama’s Wild Ride began.

Lack of job creation, skyrocketing energy costs due to the double body blow of a drilling moratorium coupled with cap and trade legislation. A crippling of small business directly due to health care over-regulation. Massive environmental damage to the Gulf coast, substantial unemployment, and a crushing national debt. Welcome to the second term of Jimmy Carter.

Related posts:

1. NYT’s Cooper: Obama Becomes Jimmy Carter If He Doesn’t Get Control Of Oil Spill
2. Barack Obama offers to stay away from mid-term campaign trail
3. Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize, Nominated Only 12 Days Into Term
4. Long-Term Care Gets the Ax
5. Fed: 7 Percent Unemployment Through Obama Term
6. Obama Adopts ‘Obamacare’ Term With Own Spin