Forty years ago today, Jimmy Carter gave one of the worst speeches in American presidential history. Reading it again, I am surprised to see that the notorious “malaise” speech is even worse than I remember.
It was Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, not Carter himself, who used the word “malaise” to describe the supposed problem on which Carter focused in his speech. The official title of the speech, “Crisis of Confidence,” was bad. Still worse was the way Carter described America and the government-centric solutions he offered for the nation’s alleged ills.
“The true problems of our nation are … deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession,” Carter said. After quoting a series of “ordinary people,” Carter continued: “All the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong with America….The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”
Later, Carter described “the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.” Americans just love their president preaching about what’s wrong with them.
Carter’s theme about Americans having no confidence was, amazingly enough, not even the speech’s worst part. The worst involved his proposed solutions.
For Carter, the soul crisis and the then-ongoing “energy crisis” seemed inextricably linked. He devoted a full third of the speech to “solv[ing] our energy problem.” His solutions were monumentally statist.
First, he pledged that America would never, ever use more foreign oil than it had used in 1977. How? By using presidential authority to set an import quota! Apparently Carter thought the way to control shortages and rising prices is to further restrict supply, at least in the short term.
Of course, he promised in the long term to produce domestic energy to replace the reduced imports. How? By “the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel.” All paid for, of course, by another huge tax — a so-called “windfall profits tax” to be “paid by Americans, to Americans.” Apparently the way to produce more fuel is to tax the current fuel producers, and their customers, to pay for new fuel development. Who knew?
Naturally, all this would be managed either by the federal government or by a quasi-governmental entity — an “energy security corporation” which “will issue up to five billion dollars in energy bonds.” Then we needed a “solar bank” to require that a full 20% of all energy needs be met by solar power by the year 2000.
Also, Carter proposed an “energy mobilization board” to cut through government’s red tape so that refineries and pipelines could be built faster — built faster by the very companies that no longer can use profits to invest in the pipelines and refineries, because those profits would now be subject to the aforementioned windfall tax.
Finally, Carter said Congress should give him authority “for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing,” while Americans, as “an act of patriotism,” should “take no unnecessary trips.” According to Carter, “there is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.”
Voters wisely opted against this, and instead sacrificed Carter himself in the next presidential election. His successor, Ronald Reagan, let the market set energy prices, and it worked. The oil shortage became an energy glut. We’ve never had an “energy crisis” since. And inflation-adjusted gasoline prices are lower now ($2.79 per gallon) than they were then ($1.22, the equivalent today of $3.65).
Americans don’t need an Oval Office therapist to restore our confidence. We don’t need a state-created “energy security corporation” to power our worlds. Carter’s speech 40 years ago was an insult to our character and our intelligence. Thank goodness we left the Carter presidency’s New Age statism in our rearview mirror.
