Zero Based Budget
I worked for the Jimmy Carter Campaign in 1976, and while my lowly post as a “Field Coordinator” in Southwestern Ohio didn’t put me beside the candidate, I did get to meet him, and spend some time with his family. Carter was a practical guy, a product of his Annapolis nuclear engineering degree. And he had practical ideas for government. One was that agencies ought to be able to justify their budget, top to bottom, every year. “Zero Based Budgeting” centered on the idea that big, bureaucratic agencies never wanted to cut, just add. Defending their core functions every year would “lean them out”, and save government money.
To be clear: Carter was not in favor of “deconstructing the administrative state” (a Steve Bannon term from the Trump Administration). But he recognized that agencies and their Congressional backers often gained bureaucratic momentum beyond their original functions. And that’s where the new Democratic President and his “Georgia Mafia” ran into trouble. They were definitely Washington “outsiders”, and a Democratic Congress wasn’t interested in cutting their own pet projects. To quote Hamilton the Musical, when it came to cutting the budget, “(He) don’t have the votes, ha, ha, ha…”.
Democrat v Democrat
Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, and had done so for over twenty years. Those legislators were incredibly vested in the status quo. So even though the titular head of the Party was President Carter, Speaker Tip O’Neil and Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd weren’t ceding any power to him. And that made the four years of Carter’s Administration frustrating, especially for the Democrats who supported him, and the American people who were hoping for something different.
Like today, there were issues in the Middle East. But those issues, and America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, caused energy prices to rocket up. The cost of a gallon of gas more than doubled from $.59 in 1976, to $1.19 in 1980. That helped drive the inflation rate, which went from around 5% to over 13% in the same time period.
Carter worked to not only control energy prices, but to move America away from fossil fuel use. He established the Energy Department to consolidated energy policy, lowered the speed limits to 55 MPH, and urged Americans to conserve. He even gave a speech from the White House wearing what we would call today a “Mr. Rodgers” sweater, urging the Nation to keep the thermostat down and dress warmer.
America’s Problem
In July of 1979, Carter spoke to the Nation. He saw America’s problems as much greater than just rising prices. Carter defined the problem as:
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.
He then listed the specific issues that were bringing Americans “down”:
- Lost faith in the government, and in citizens ability to govern
- “worship” of self-indulgence and consumption.
- “Human identity, (is) no longer defined by what one does, but what one owns.”
- Belief that the next five years will be worse than the last five.
- Two-thirds of Americans don’t vote
- Work productivity dropping
- Savings below all others in the Western World.
- Disrespect for government, churches, schools, the news media.
What Washington Can Do
And for Americans looking to the Federal government to improve this – here’s what Carter said:
What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.
Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don’t like it, and neither do I. What can we do?
The President then went on to offer a series of tough changes, to improve our energy situation, and to rebuild confidence in America’s institutions. By telling Americans the “truth”, he wanted to galvanize them towards a common goal.
Politics
From a political standpoint it was a risky speech. Some commentators dubbed it the “malaise speech”, though Carter never used the term. It might have worked, and Carter might have made the great strides in energy and environmental changes he was looking for. But four months later, fifty Americans were taken hostage in Iran, and Carter’s inability to get them released over the next year cost him the Presidency. Though today it seems Ronald Reagan’s victory was inevitable, at the time the outcome was unclear up until the last few days before the election.
There are a lot of similarities between America of the 1970’s and America today. We too have lost confidence in the government to solve problems. We look at Congress, still “…twisted and pulled by hundreds of powerful and well-funded special interests.” Even Carter’s term, “fair and balanced”, was co-opted by Fox News. But there are two significant differences between Democrats Jimmy Carter in 1979, and Joe Biden in 2023.
Today’s America
First of all, Biden was never a Washington outsider. He knows how to get things done, and has a stack of successful legislative programs to show for it, that are helping America. Drive anywhere; the barrels are on the roads, the bridges are going up, and the factories are blooming in the fields like corn stalks, “knee-high by the Fourth of July”. Unlike the soaring figures of the seventies, Biden has gotten inflation under control. Gas prices are down by over a dollar since the peak in 2022. All indicators are that he will “land the economy” after the economic disruption of the Covid pandemic.
Biden is trying to balance the international affairs that afflict our time. Russia’s leader is right where Biden wants him; bogged down and 100% committed to a failed attempt to takeover Ukraine. And Biden is pressuring Israel to change their scorched earth strategy in Gaza, pressure that will ultimately be effective because Israel, frankly, has nowhere else to turn for support.
And second, to paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen, “Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan”. America knows exactly what we’ll get from a second Trump Administration. No matter how low the MAGA world is able to drag Biden’s name, they can’t get him as low as Trump already has placed himself.
It’s not about who wins in 2024. The question is what will America do to regain its confidence in itself, America’s mission, and America’s destiny as the greatest Democracy in the world? That’s not an issue that Joe Biden may be able to solve. Ultimately, it up to all of us, Americans as a whole: to find a shared identity, a shared mission, to take us into the future.
