[Jimmy Carter] was unable to make necessary changes and to inspire us with his leadership, and he had the political capital and house and senate backing him.
Jimmy Carter asked the nation to sacrifice RE petroleum addiction.
He said one day we would get stuck in the Middle east.
He knew we could not completely get off or abandon oil; rather, he just wanted to create a comprehensive conservation and alternative energy strategy in order to limit our oil use so that we would not be so exposed to the $4 gallon -- he didn't want the American Lifestyle to make terrorists richer. He didn't want oil shocks to have such a severe effect on the American economy (which is more dependent on petroleum than any other economy by a scary factor). He didn't want to have to compete with China and India for a diminishing resource. He saw a real problem, but Reagan and narrow corporate interests silenced him.
Reagan and the Right framed Jimmy as a "sky is falling" lefty. They said he was crazy to think America needed to move more parts of its transportation and production networks to less oil intensive systems. Reagan's first act in the White House was to tear down the solar panels put in place by Carter. [The Right loved making fun of the Left for worrying about energy; they loved making fun of the alternative energy crowd. No need to worry about oil!] Because of Reagan, America spent 30 years not addressing our crippling dependency on the Middle East. America handed its energy future to profiteers who had no interest in preparing for a oil-scarce universe. They invested heavily into Reagan. Because of Reagan we spent 30 years making terrorist nations richer. Ronnie solved the oil problem by increasing our military footprint in the Middle East (and he didn't put
his increased military spending into the price of oil; he deprived the market of accurate price signals, which would have lead to a different approach to energy). Like bush, he hid the financial costs of militarizing the Middle East in emergency spending measures. He kept it off the books. America didn't know what hit them until the Reagan deficits became impossible to ignore.
Carter asked America to make sacrifices. Reagan told them what they wanted to hear.
Reagan got energy wrong and America is now lying in that bed.
Silly Rabbit -- Reagan's Cold War spending and military build up made government much bigger, and more in debt, and centralized power more than anything Carter could dream of. Reagan was the first Big Government Conservative. He was a fiscal nightmare, and he set America on an energy path that would eventually destroy her.
Just kidding, I'm 18.
