His arguably most enduring, and today unappreciated, accomplishment was in ensuring Senate ratification of treaties restoring control of the Panama Canal Zone, and the canal itself, to Panama. By the mid-1970s, US control of the canal had lost much of its strategic value, yet was a significant embarrassment across much the world and a flash point for violence in Panama. Though all three previous administrations had made efforts to divest ownership, fierce opposition to “giving away” the canal at home had stalled the proceedings (opposing the negotiations was, in fact, a centerpiece of Reagan’s effort to unseat Ford). Carter finished the job, securing ratification by a single vote, at the cost of considerable political capital.
Indeed, Carter had something of a knack for spending his political capital without a plan for earning more. Both his wonkish focus on policy problems and his principled but often abrasive refusal to engage in the traditional horse-trading upon which Congress thrived cut into his ability to advance his administration’s agenda as his term wore on.
More critically, he offered little at home to secure the loyalty of voters struggling to make a living amid the uncertain economic climate of the mid-1970s. Admittedly, it was a difficult environment for policy makers to navigate as well, but Carter’s tendency to favor efficiency and cost cutting increasingly pulled him toward “small government” solutions. The neoliberal turn away from the more social democratic elements of the New Deal — and toward the market fundamentalism of the present — began on Carter’s watch and at his direction.
Promising early signs that the administration would work to strengthen the hand of workers and the poor faded as the president’s attention was drawn elsewhere and his preference for more conservative solutions was made clear. Staffers in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, for example, pushed Carter to resurrect a program for a guaranteed national income that had nearly passed Congress during Richard Nixon’s administration. Carter, however, pushed for more modest proposals, and even the watered down 1977 welfare “Program for Better Jobs and Income” never really became a priority (and was as much focused on cutting costs as increasing benefits).
A similar fate awaited legislation requiring the government to guarantee a job for all Americans, regardless of market conditions — a focus of the prolabor left since the 1940s. Proposed in 1974 by Senator Hubert Humphrey and Representative Augustus Hawkins, the bill initially required the government to provide a job if the market couldn’t. Carter proved skeptical and pushed for a more watered-down proposal in 1977. The final version of the bill, passed in 1978 as the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act, merely required the government to pursue the goal of full employment, and in practice did little beyond increasing the number of reports the federal government provided on the economy each year.