President Jimmy Carter Asked the Country to Sacrifice

The recent passing of President Jimmy Carter at the age of 100 has led to many tributes that include mention of his marriage, his time in office, and his time since leaving the White House in 1981. He stands out to me for a different reason.

What Carter did as president has not been done since because it likely led to him losing his bid for re-election. He asked the country to personally sacrifice. In a time when the energy crisis was real, he asked Americans to take action by using less energy. It was a small thing, but what leader has really done that since?

In 2001, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the entire country became united in resolve. President George W. Bush could have asked the country to do almost anything productive, and we probably would have done it. Asking the country to just keep living their lives, to not let the terrorists win, is not really a sacrifice. We could have increased energy efficiency to protect us from foreign powers, or become more tolerant as a society, or increased investments in infrastructure. We did none of those things. No one asked.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we had some leaders ask for people to personally sacrifice to help others and we kind of did that. But we also saw huge government payments to maintain the economy in an attempt to pay people for the inconvenience. So we did something and got paid for it.

Here is the problem. We have a couple of major crises that exist right now that will not be solved without some personal sacrifice by all of us. The first is the federal budget crisis. With a national debt of more than $36 trillion, we will not be able to pay this off without significant sacrifice from nearly every American. Yet that isn’t happening.

The new Trump administration has presented policy objectives that would increase the national debt significantly. In addition, almost everyone has some sort of policy area that they don’t want adjusted. It might be the military, entitlements, farm subsidies, or tax increases. Each of these has its loyal and vocal supporters. Yet $36 trillion will continue to grow and the government will not be able to fund those same programs because it will be paying huge sums in interest from borrowing all of that money.

Hardly anyone in Washington is even willing to discuss Social Security reform measures to keep it funded. Yet the program is pretty simple, with very few factors impacting the financial equation. Most every policy maker understands this; they just don’t want to touch it. In fact, in the first few weeks of this year social security benefits increased for millions of public employees without doing anything to stabilize the larger system.

Then we have climate change. If it really is the existential crisis that many claim it is, how many people have truly adjusted their own personal behavior to deal with this issue? How many people really took public transit to work today or are willing to reduce their consumption of certain foods for the benefit of the planet? Not many.

For those who measure climate change by average world temperature, to make a difference would require major alterations to our daily lives. Yet all around us in the world, we see gasoline-powered cars being sold, our homes are heated and cooled with fossil fuels to perfection, international travel is flourishing, and we have disposable everything. Few are really making the sacrifices to address this problem.

Everyone loves the idea of solar panels and more public transit. Yet few are willing to accept mandates to do the right thing. The result is the tragedy of the commons.

To address the national debt or climate change will take enormous sacrifice if we really want to address them. But I don’t see any elected leader of either party being willing to step up and truly address either one of these issues. They have seen the political price that was paid by President Jimmy Carter when he asked Americans to simply turn down their winter thermostats.