One of the more challenging tasks I face each year in teaching United States History to high school students is figuring out how to explain the Jimmy Carter administration.
Economic advisers to any administration concern themselves with two primary metrics: purchasing power and employment. The generic way of understanding the tension is to recognize that when employment is high, dollars are in greater abundance throughout the economy, and thus the purchasing power of a dollar drops. When unemployment spikes, the strength of the dollar has an opportunity to grow.
Historically speaking, Republican administrations have been willing to abide a slightly higher percentage of unemployment if it means a stronger dollar. Democrat administrations, on the other hand, have preferred higher employment numbers even if it simultaneously sparks inflation.
The optimal situation, of course, is to negotiate a delicate balance. Developing policy that drives employment up while at the same time maintaining a strong dollar is the goal of any president. However, during the Carter years, somehow and some way his economic policy managed to cultivate the worst of both worlds: skyrocketing unemployment and crippling inflation. Inflation ballooned from 5.8% in the first year of his term to 13.5% by the time he left.
Economists applied the label "stagflation" to try to describe the unfortunate phenomenon that the Carter administration managed to inflict upon the country.
Now some 40 years later, it seems increasingly likely that America is welcoming back the second coming of one of its most failed presidencies.
Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that the country's price index surged more than twice what analysts had forecast for the month of April. That, combined with a concerning growth of inflation and a paltry jobs report that came out this week as well, offers more than just a few shades of the late 70s.
Let's not forget that the disaster of the Carter years wasn't confined to economics. There were military and diplomatic foibles like mounting Mid-East tensions and the botched rescue attempt of our Iranian hostages. And President Carter's plan to grant amnesty for illegal immigrants was receiving dismal marks from labor groups and law-abiding citizens who saw it as inviting further economic peril.
Does any of that sound familiar?
Just this last week both NBC and ABC were chronicling the spiraling immigration crisis at our southern border.
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Meanwhile, what had looked for months like a growing era of relative peace in the Middle East has begun quickly devolving into an escalating war between Israel and Hamas. Where it ends up is anyone's guess, but if nothing else, it has become quite clear to the Israelis that they are on their own. The Biden administration's public presence, voice, and leadership has been glaringly absent since the rockets started flying.
Not that the president's involvement would be helpful. Remember this is the guy that Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged had "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
You know what former president that sounds like?
