Since 2001, the U.S. government has abandoned its role as a champion of human rights and has perpetrated terrible and illegal abuses in prisons in Ab… - Jimmy Carter

I have tried, at least most of the time, to set high objectives, to accept failures and disappointments with relative equanimity, to acknowledge and try to correct my mistakes and weaknesses, and then to set different and sometimes higher goals for the future.

We have established the following goals: I've been over these with the congressional leaders, with representatives of the Department of HEW, with Labor, my own economic advisers, OMB, Treasury, to make sure that they are feasible and also advisable. And they will be guidelines for us in the next 3 months as we put together the final legislative proposals. First of all, the new system will be at no higher initial cost than the present systems combined. Second, under this system every family with children and a member of the family able to work will have access to a job. Third, incentives will always encourage full-time and part-time private sector employment. Fourth, public training and employment programs should be provided when private employment is unavailable. Fifth, a family should have more income if it works than if it does not work. Sixth, incentives should be designed to keep families together. Now many of the incentives, deliberately or not, encourage families to be separated. Seventh, earned income tax credits should be continued to help the working poor. Eighth, a decent income should be provided also for those who cannot work or earn adequate incomes, with Federal benefits consolidated into a simple cash payment, varying in amount only to accommodate differences in the cost of living from one community to another. Ninth, the program should be simpler and easier to administer. Tenth, there should be incentives encouraging honesty and designed to eliminate fraud. What this means is that the accurate reporting of income and financial status will be naturally encouraged among those who receive benefits. Eleventh, the unpredictable and growing financial burden on local and State governments should be reduced as rapidly as Federal services or resources permit. And twelfth, local administration of public jobs programs should be emphasized. Now, we have varying estimates on the number of jobs required to carry out all these programs depending upon the analyses and the basic premises. For instance, to provide this kind of service, we estimate that about 2 million total training and public jobs would be required. We now have plans for about 925,000 public service jobs.

Yes, not with the PLO; we have no contact with the PLO. But with Jordan and with Syria, with Lebanon and, in a supportive role, with the Saudi Arabians and others, we have played, I think, an adequate role. At the time we discovered that President Sadat was going to make a proposal to go to Jerusalem, we immediately began to use whatever influence we had available to us to encourage the other nations not to condemn President Sadat. This particularly applied to Saudi Arabia, to Jordan, to the European countries, to the Soviet Union, and to Syria. In some instances, either they decided not to condemn him or our influence was successful. We would like very much to keep any of the nations involved in the immediate Middle Eastern discussions from rejecting an ultimate peace settlement and withdrawing from the prospect of going to Geneva. This includes, of course, Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat. They have not rejected the concept that there must be a comprehensive settlement. In the meantime, we don't see anything wrong; in fact, we look with great favor on the bilateral negotiations between Israel and Egypt. In the meantime, we are trying to induce the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Jordanians, and, as I say again, in a supporting role, the Saudis and others, to support both the ongoing negotiations that will continue from Jerusalem into Cairo and also to avoid any condemnation of Sadat that might disrupt his influence and put an obstacle to peace in the future. That's about all we can do. We have no control over any nation in the Middle East. When we find the progress in the Middle East being stopped, we use all the initiative that we can. When we see progress being made by the parties themselves, we support them to move on their own. I think it's much more important to have direct negotiations between Egypt and Israel than to have us acting as a constant, dominant intermediary. I think this is a major step in the right direction. We hope later that Jordan and Syria and Lebanon will join in these discussions, either individually or as a comprehensive group, dealing with Israel directly.