First, ex-President Carter's book, was released in 2005. It is one of many books written by Carter, many of them with a religious and/or spiritual message. I find it quite fascinating that, as I read Carter's words, there is much overlap between his sentiments and my own, despite the huge disparity in our thinking when it comes to religious affiliation. Carter was raised a Baptist, in the traditional sense of the word, and has actively practiced his religion during his entire adult life, through ministry and service. As an adult, I have eschewed organized religion, seeing the hypocrisy rather than the positive. Yet, as I read his book, I was agreeing much more frequently with his perspective, even when his opinion on topics such as abortion and war, were not shared by me.
I was also surprised by how much politics Carter injected into his book. He is not flattering in his opinions of the Republican party, no surprise it itself since he was a Democrat, but his criticisms are often values based, even morally and ethically based, something that might affront the life-long Republican who was always taught that the GOP was the party of family values, religion and God. And, Carter names names in his rebukes, detailing specific instances where GOP hypocrisy in the area of values, seemed most flagrant.
The subtitle of Our Endangered Values, is America's Moral Crisis. It is through a multitude of pointed examples that Carter identifies his belief that the source of our shared moral crisis is somewhat linked with the recent merger of far right Christian groups with the GOP, in that while their focus on family values is correct, their policies and solutions to addressing the decline of the middle class family, is far off the mark. Carter pulls no punches in his description of his belief that this merger has created a dangerous path to America becoming a theocracy as opposed to a democracy, and in light of the evangelical community's boast that they helped elect President Trump, Carter's concern is not far off the mark.
In the area of abortion, his perspective sums up the problem best. While Jimmy Carter does not condone abortion, as President he was compelled to honor the rulings of the Supreme Court in cases such as Roe v Wade. This did not mean that he did not do everything in his power to prevent abortions, it just means that he took his oath of office seriously, to uphold the rule of law. His concern with the pro-life movement, again, one in which he agreed with in its belief that we should reduce the rate of abortions in America, was in their active role in preventing sex education for our young people, in fighting against the use of condoms and other preventive measures, and, once a young woman might choose to have her baby rather than aborting it, supporting the fight against "socialist" policies which give government support for these young mothers to attain inexpensive day care, access to health services, education training, adequate wages. Carter rightfully points out the numerous ways that the GOP loves the fetus but despises the baby, and its mother, once the fetus emerges from the womb.
There are a number of other areas where Carter details how the evangelical community has worked with the GOP, under the auspices of fighting socialism, to damage our collective soul. Towards the end of the book he discusses how the national debt ballooned under Reagan and Bush which he believed to be the foundation for future cut backs to "entitlements" like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social/humanitarian programs like Head Start, all the while reducing taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
Now, of course, since 2005 when Carter wrote his book, deficits continued to spike under President Obama, and was one of the major causes for the rise in the Tea Party Movement. Curiously, if one were to measure deficit increases by percentage of the overall debt, after the huge increases of our national debt during the World Wars which were astounding, but generally considered acceptable, the following list indicates that President Reagan was the leader, by percentage, in his increase of our national debt. And, in fact, of the most recent presidents in history, only one, a Democrat, reduced our national debt, President Clinton. And that Carter, and this table is not from his book but from another source, a president who most people might consider a failure, was bested in the area of increasing our national debt, by percentage, by only Nixon, not either Bush, or Ford, or Reagan.
President Barack Obama: Total = $6.785 trillion, a 57 percent increase.
- FY 2017 - $666 billion. Although Trump requested additional spending, Congress did not approve it.
- FY 2016 - $585 billion.
- FY 2015 - $438 billion.
- FY 2014 - $485 billion.
- FY 2013 - $679 billion.
- FY 2012 - $1.087 trillion.
- FY 2011 - $1.300 trillion.
- FY 2010 - $1.547 trillion. This is the sum of $1.294 trillion plus $253 billion from the Obama Stimulus Act that was attached to the FY 2009 budget.
President George W. Bush: Total = $3.293 trillion, a 57 percent increase.
President Bill Clinton: Total = $63 billion surplus, a 1 percent decrease.
- FY 2001 - $128 billion surplus.
- FY 2000 - $236 billion surplus.
- FY 1999 - $126 billion surplus.
- FY 1998 - $69 billion surplus.
- FY 1997 - $22 billion.
- FY 1996 - $107 billion.
- FY 1995 - $164 billion.
- FY 1994 - $203 billion.
President George H.W. Bush: Total = $1.036 trillion, a 36 percent increase.
- FY 1993 - $255 billion.
- FY 1992 - $290 billion.
- FY 1991 - $269 billion.
- FY 1990 - $221 billion.
President Ronald Reagan: Total = $1.412 trillion, a 142 percent increase.
- FY 1989 - $153 billion.
- FY 1988 - $155 billion.
- FY 1987 - $150 billion.
- FY 1986 - $221 billion.
- FY 1985 - $212 billion.
- FY 1984 - $185 billion.
- FY 1983 - $208 billion.
- FY 1982 - $128 billion.
President Jimmy Carter: Total = $253 billion, a 36 percent increase.
- FY 1981 - $79 billion.
- FY 1980 - $74 billion.
- FY 1979 - $41 billion.
- FY 1978 - $59 billion.
President Gerald Ford: Total = $181 billion, a 38 percent increase.
- FY 1977 - $54 billion.
- FY 1976 - $74 billion.
- FY 1975 - $53 billion.
President Richard Nixon: Total = $70 billion, a 20 percent increase.
- FY 1974 - $6 billion.
- FY 1973 - $15 billion.
- FY 1972 - $23 billion.
- FY 1971 - $23 billion.
- FY 1970 - $3 billion.
President Lyndon B. Johnson: Total = $36 billion, an 11 percent increase.
- FY 1969 - $3 billion surplus.
- FY 1968 - $25 billion.
- FY 1967 - $9 billion.
- FY 1966 - $4 billion.
- FY 1965 - $1 billion.
Considering that under President Trump, the 2018 budget deficit was $789 billion, and is on pace to be $1 trillion, per year, in the next few years, and that already submitted budgets by the president and the GOP are targeting the "entitlements" of social security and medicare, and that one of the primary movers of this increase in the deficit is the recent tax cuts which saw the bulk of the savings go to the top wage earners in the country, it all seems to indicate that Carter hit a few home runs in his 2005 book when he lamented the course of America should the marriage between the evangelical community and the GOP continue. Add to that, the populism which Trump succeeded in tapping with his the anti-immigrant, anti-government, rhetoric, and we see how Carter'r fears that America would continue suffering from a moral crisis seem prescient. Not to mention the opioid crisis, which seems even more appalling, if we are to believe how insidious the pharmaceutical industry was in its behavior in regards to pushing pain killers which they knew to be addictive, all for the sake of higher profits.
In not so many words, Carter checks all the boxes when it comes to chiding Americans for our worship of money above all else, and our ability to choose bedfellows, not based on shared moral values, but based on the Machiavellian precept of the ends justifies the means, whether its a marriage which supports a serial philanderer to make abortion illegal, or one which dehumanizes those with darker skin while altering the rules so as to allow them to accumulate more and more obscene amounts of wealth.
Which bring me to the Mueller report. For those of you who haven't read it, and, based on its shear length and dry material in general, and the comments I see on facebook, and in the halls of Congress, I expect that is most of you, I heartily recommend downloading it and, at the very least, glancing through it. I would imagine that Carter, should he be inclined, might comment that its content conveys everything he worried about in 2005, and much, much more.
The Mueller report itself, is two parts. The first is about 200 pages of proof that the Russians actively interfered in the 2016 election, in hopes of electing Donald Trump. It documents multiple examples of their efforts on social media, in the hacking of emails of those in the Clinton campaign, of contacting a host of members of the Trump campaign, including his son, and in the ways that these tactics attacked Hillary Clinton and praised Donald Trump. What it does not conclusively prove is that the Trump campaign traded favored treatment for this assistance, although the actions by Michael Flynn in particular, were disturbing. Not to mention the president's almost daily assertions that the Russians did not interfere because he asked Vladimir Putin and he said "Nyet".
The second part details the lengths to which the President attempted to interfere with or scuttle the Mueller investigation. His attempts to get Attorney General Sessions to un-recuse himself so he could fire Mueller, his attempts to bribe witnesses through pardons and promotions to either lie or bend the truth to protect him, and his multiple tweets which attacked the investigation as a witch hunt, in an overt attempt to render any possible conclusion as political rather than factual. Plus the numerous attempts to have Mueller's investigation be restricted to the future, not the past, and his firing of various people who would not break the law to do his bidding. The report painstakingly paints a picture of a man who tried everything in his power to interfere with the investigation, but who failed in this endeavor only because some of his staff preferred to quit rather than go to jail.
In regards to collusion, Mueller states emphatically at the outset that there is no such term in federal penal code, but he does amply detail how willing the Trump campaign was to accept aid from the Russians. In regards to obstruction, Mueller leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for Congress to follow should they believe that impeachment is justified, but he bows to the precedent established in the DOJ guidelines that a sitting president should not be indicted, because he values the office of the presidency and its possible inability to function in the face of such a decision, and values the founders belief in the three branches of government, believing that his job was to present the facts, while it is Congress's job to pursue a political solution.
I have heard some compelling arguments against this viewpoint, and understand them, especially the argument which says that in extraordinary times, extraordinary men must sometimes take extraordinary measures, and that Mueller may have proven himself to be less than able in this regard. In many ways, he seems to be a Constitutional purist, and a believer in the basic tenets of our democracy. Perhaps open to criticism for such ivory tower beliefs, but certainly not deserving of the rhetoric emanating from the White House.
In the end, it seems to be a perfect justification why the American electorate should never elect a powerful, successful business person to run our government, because to be in that position, one has to be comfortable with skirting, changing, or ignoring the law. One might even conclude, that while politics is a dirty business, filled with questionable ethics, double talk, and subterfuge, big business is far worse because it is far easier for people to sell out for the higher private sector salaries, than the lower compensation package of the public sector. I imagine that President Trump is continually disappointed with his governmental staff when they do not "do what we knew he wanted us to do" as Cohen described it.
What really strikes me about the report, is that it reaffirms my belief that the President Trump is the consummate politician, able to bend the truth in whatever way is required, able to attack his opponents for the very thing he is most guilty of, able to convince people to vote against their own interests by presenting his policies as ones which will punish those he knows his listeners most despise.
In the end, I guess that is the challenge; being able to differentiate policies and rhetoric that uphold values above all else, or disguise selfishness with words that link to values, but are without substance.
Or worse, to acknowledge that as long as we have a few bucks in our pockets and our IRA's , we can excuse any behavior.
My next post will be directed specifically towards President Donald Trump.
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