Carter’s Domestic Policies

When Jimmy Carter was elected president, the US was still in a poor economic situation – This was, in large part, a result of long term changes The manufacturing sector was shrinking due to automation and foreign competition The services sector was growing More education was needed for high-paying jobs Energy prices were rising, in part because of OPEC – Carter experienced mixed results when trying to fix the economy The Nation Energy Act helped reduce US dependence on foreign oil slightly – Taxed gas-guzzling cars, aided the domestic oil industry, provided tax breaks to develop alternative energy sources Carter tried a number of measures to increase employment and reduce inflation, none of which worked – The wide range of policies he tried made Americans think that he had no real plan – Gave a speech, known as the “malaise” speech, in which he complained of a “crisis of spirit” in America: made many Americans think that he had given up

Discussions Come up with four complex discussion questions regarding anything from this unit (Nixon, Ford, and Carter) – These should come from the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy