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Jimmy Carter on Government Reform
President of the U.S., 1977-1981
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1978: Government cannot mandate goodness
Who said the following? "Government cannot solve our problems, it can't set our goals. It cannot define our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide
energy. And government cannot mandate goodness."Ronald Reagan? No, those were the words of President Jimmy Carter, in his 1978 State if the Union address. And who said this?
"We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not
program for every problem. We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The era of big government is over."
George W. Bush? Actually, that was Bill Clinton, in his State of the Union address, in January 1996. Clinton added with pride, "Today our federal government is 200,000 employees smaller than it was the day I took office as President."
Source: Obama`s Challenge, by Robert Kuttner, p. 87-88
, Aug 25, 2008
Created Depts. of Energy & Education; reformed civil service
Other domestic accomplishments included approval of the Carter plan to overhaul the civil-service system, making it easier to fire incompetents; creation of new departments of education and energy;
deregulation of the airlines to stimulate competition and lower fares; and environmental efforts that included passage of a law preserving vast wilderness areas of Alaska.
Source: Grolier’s Encyclopedia, “The Presidency”
, Dec 25, 2000
Deregulate banks & airlines; get rid of excessive regulation
Our first major test in Congress would come on a bill authorizing the President to address the problem of the federal bureaucracy--its complexity, its remoteness when people needed help, its intrusiveness when they wanted to be left alone, and its
excessive regulation of the major industries to the detriment of consumers. An important achievement of my administration when I was governor of Georgia had been to reorganize the state government, and I was eager to make similar
changes in the federal government.I wanted to combine many scattered agencies into one Department of Energy; establish another department for all matters concerning education; deregulate banks, airlines, trucking, communications,
and railways, hold down the number of federal employees; reduce paperwork; and consolidate or eliminate as many of the small agencies and advisory groups as possible.
Source: Keeping Faith, by Jimmy Carter, p. 69
, Jan 24, 1977
Pushed government-in-sunshine open-meetings laws
As governor, Carter pushed for "government-in-sunshine" legislation. He proposed a law opening many government meetings to the public and to reporters. This was a revision of the state's previous open-meetings law, and some questioned whether the
revisions were actually an improvement. Carter was also largely responsible for the passage of a campaign financial disclosure bill, requiring candidates to make public disclosures of all contributions of $101 or more.
Source: Jimmy Who?, by Leslie Wheeler, p. 81
, Jan 1, 1976
Page last updated: Apr 28, 2013
