Biden Administration Climate Policy Replays Jimmy Carter in 1979

American Thinker:
By Jerome Corsi

The Biden administration’s climate policies have fueled double-digit inflation and negative growth in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) not seen since 1979 when the OPEC oil embargo helped usher Ronald Reagan into the White House.

In the last year of his presidency, Jimmy Carter struggled because the OPEC oil embargo caused long lines at the gas pump to pay surging gasoline costs. In February 1977, during a nationally televised speech to the nation, Carter wore a cardigan sweater from a seat in the White House, urging Americans to turn down their thermostats to 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night to waste less energy. Carter ushered in the Reagan presidency by arguing to Americans that the energy shortage was “permanent,” and urged a shift to “solar energy and other renewable energy sources.”

Also in 1979, to fight surging inflation, then-Fed Chair Paul Volker placed a lid on the money supply, raising interest rates, which peaked at 20.0% percent in June 1981. This dramatic move drove inflation down from a high of 14.8% in March 1980 to 2.5% three years later. The price of Volker’s decisive moves was that the U.S. economy suffered two punishing recessions.

The economic doom and gloom hanging over Carter’s presidency were perhaps best expressed in July 1979, in Carter’s infamous “malaise speech,” which he delivered from the White House exactly three years after accepting the Democrat Party nomination to run for president. “It’s clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper—deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession,” Carter said. “The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of America.” Carter blamed the nation’s problems on America’s dependence on foreign oil during the 1970s, an era during which many believed the United States had run out of oil. “We believed that our nations resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil.” more