Jimmy Carter Quotes

One thing that I want to talk about tonight is that we share, the Black Caucus, all of its supporters, and I, a common, ultimate dream for America. It's going to be a long time coming because this dream is so great. We want a time to come when all Americans will be well off enough to afford the same tailor that Ron Dellums 1 has. Now, to be serious for a few minutes, I'd like to say that I've had a very interesting relationship with the Black Caucus in this first part of my administration. Sometimes we've been in complete harmony. Sometimes I haven't exactly satisfied Parren Mitchell and the other members of the Black Caucus. I can tell the difference when I get my mail. In the low times, the mail that comes from Parren Mitchell to the White House is just addressed to "Occupant." But I have to say that in many ways the partnership that I have formed with the Black Caucus has been good for me, good for my administration, good for the entire Government, and good for our country. We've got a long way to go. And expectations are high, and they ought to be high. But because of that, quite often achievements that a year ago or 5 years ago would have been greeted with a great sense of jubilation and a sigh of relief-that an enormous achievement had been accepted by the American people with only a response, "It should have been more."

Well, one of the major Considerations in evolving the tax reform package is obviously to provide adequate incentive for business expansion. And I believe that when the tax reform package is made public, that there will be a sigh of relief and also a removal of the inevitable uncertainty about what the terms of the tax proposal might encompass. Also, of course, through long weeks of House and Senate hearings, any possible improvements on the tax reform package would be explored. We have met with many leaders--I have personally--representing small businesses, large businesses, the professions, labor, consumers, tax experts, in trying to evolve a good package. And I think it will be good. We hope that there will be equity. We hope that there will be a reduction in tax rates. We hope that there will be simplicity, and we hope that we can provide an adequate assurance of improved venture capital in the future. And we hope that there will be substantial tax reductions. Those are about five factors that I hope will be in the tax reform package and which I can predict to you with great assurance will be in the tax package.

Great American power and responsibility are not unprecedented and have been used with restraint and great benefit in the past. We have not assumed that super strength guarantees super wisdom, and we have consistently reached out to the international community to ensure that our own power and influence are tempered by the best common judgment.

We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.

There is a strong religious commitment to the sanctity of human life, but, paradoxically, some of the most fervent protectors of microscopic stem cells are the most ardent proponents of the death penalty.

I never considered disobeying an order or even a request from Daddy. I loved and admired him, and one of my preeminent goals in life was to earn his approbation. I learned to expect his criticisms, always constructive, but his accolades were rare.

Theologian Paul Tillich maintained that there is a profound difference between anxiety and fear. Anxiety, he wrote, grows out of the awareness of our own fragility, uncertainty, and impending death. By contrast, fear is of a specific, identifiable threat or object that can be faced or endured with courage. Tillich said that we should strive to change overwhelming anxiety into fear, with which we may deal more effectively. Our guilt and anxiety are relieved when we realize that God has already accepted us and loves us as we are.

Any system of economics is bankrupt if it sees either value or virtue in unemployment. We simply cannot check inflation by keeping people out of work..

Earlier in my life I thought the things that mattered were the things that you could see, like your car, your house, your wealth, your property, your office. But as I've grown older I've become convinced that the things that matter most are the things that you can't see — the love you share with others, your inner purpose, your comfort with who you are.

The complexity of the system is almost incomprehensible, and the consolidation of the cash. payment into one basic aid to the poor--those who cannot work, those who cannot earn enough income to support their families--will be a major step forward. Another problem arrives from the lack of incentive to work. For instance, a father who heads up a family with four people in it, either a mother and two children or three children, in Michigan, working full time at the minimum wage, has a total income of $5,678. A same-sized family without the father in the home with still four people there, not working at all, has an income of $7,161. A family with the head of the household--a mother and three children--if she goes to work at the minimum wage, has a total income of $9,530 [$8,970.] This shows that the best thing that a working father can do to increase the income of the people that he loves is simply to leave home.

I made the decision myself to contact the Soviets. We told them that we were aware of the problem, asked them for any information about the satellite, and told them unofficially that we would not try to capitalize on their misfortune in a propaganda way. We wanted to be sure that the adequate preparation was made for the reentry of the satellite into the atmosphere, and we notified some of our key allies around the world who would have the capability both to monitor the progress of the satellite and also to deal with radioactivity once it fell. I had a difficult decision to make in how much publicity to bring to this satellite, because it's almost impossible to let people know the facts without the threat being exaggerated, and we didn't want to create exaggerated fears. We monitored the satellite constantly. We shared with the Soviets estimates of when it would come down. the exact point of its penetration of the atmosphere was not known until just an hour or two before it crashed, because it was tumbling. And when a satellite of that kind enters the atmosphere, it can skip off and go several thousands of miles further than you have actually anticipated. We knew that it would fall somewhere between just north of Hawaii, northeast of Hawaii, or the eastern side of Africa. And it was making a great circle route up above the point where it finally fell. That was just about the northern point. The Soviets did tell us, in general, what kind of reactor it was. They told us that their best estimate was it would burn as it entered the atmosphere. So, I can't—without going back and checking the exact language of their report to us—I can't say whether they gave us all the facts. But I think it was handled properly; certainly, by us. I don't know who else the Soviets notified. When I found that it was going to hit Canada, early that morning—I come over here quite early in the morning—I called the Prime Minister of Canada and talked to him on the phone. And we were pretty lucky in telling him where it was going into the atmosphere. We had it on radar. But in retrospect, it may be that the Soviets could have given us more information. I think they probably gave us about what we would have given them in a similar circumstance.

I'm trying to approach the Government as a business manager and also as a small businessman who knows the defects in the Government. Our family has been brought very close together. We've had substantial success in the developing nations of the world in being reaccepted as a part of the world community who had some concern about them and who treated them with equality and mutual respect. I believe we've had a blessing in that we've not had a serious military threat. This, obviously, is something that I hope to maintain throughout my term in office. I hope that we've taken at least a small step forward in restoring the confidence of the American people in the integrity of the Government and the competence of Government. This is going to be a slow process. It's something that can't come in a year, or even 2 years, because with the horrible shocks of Vietnam and Watergate and the CIA revelations, the American people had lost confidence that there was something here in Washington that they could trust and admire. I think the most pleasant surprise to me has been the worldwide impact of our reemphasis on human rights. I really felt when I came into .office that something needed to be done just to raise a banner for the American people to admire and of which they could be proud again. I think that the emphasis on human personal freedom and democratic principles is very important for us to espouse. And although a year ago, I think, very few national leaders anywhere in the world paid much attention to human rights, I don't believe there's a single one out of the roughly 150 that now doesn't consider, "Before we take action, what is the world going to think about me, the way I'm dealing with political prisoners or out-migration or the reunification of families or the persecution of human beings?" I think the human rights issue has been a great escalation. We've also made a major move toward nonproliferation of nuclear explosives. And again, I think a year ago there was great despair in the world about whether anybody could ever put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. I think there's a reconfirmation now of effort on the part of even countries that have sold reprocessing plants, like Germany and France, all the rest of us, to try to stop the spread of nuclear explosives and not let it go into nations that haven't had them in the past. Those are a few things that come to mind.

the total capacity of the brains of Neanderthals has been found to be greater than that of modern humans.

Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.

I'd like to outline very briefly for you, in the time I have available, some of the achievements already. But I want to emphasize again, I'm not bragging about it because we recognize, as does Vernon Jordan, my friend, that we have a long way to go. We've set as a goal for this year the reduction of the unemployment rate from 8.1 percent, which it was last December, to 7 percent by the end of this year. We've already reached that goal, and we expect it to go on down, perhaps as low as 6.5 percent before the end of the year, with a trend downward that will be maintained. We have also created just a few of the jobs that I have described to you. Of the $4 billion public works bill--the benefits that have not mirrored in the reduction in unemployment that we've already seen; that's still to come because it takes a long time to get these programs going once the Congress approves the measure--of the $4 billion, we last week signed the first contracts for less than one percent of the money that's available. But beginning with this week, we will be approving 1,000 public works contracts per week, and we'll have all $4 billion allocated by September 30 and, for the first time, for the first time, 10 percent of every contract must go to a minority subcontractor or supplier. This can mean $400 million in additional, new income for minority business men and women.