If I told you today that a Dem is running on the platform of deregulation ;fiscal restraint and putting sunset clauses on legislation you would think I was joking.
Imagine a Dem saying this today .
We need patience and good will, but we really need to realize that
there is a limit to the role and the function of government. Government cannot solve our problems, it can't set our goals, it cannot define our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide energy. And government cannot mandate goodness. Only a true partnership between government and the people can ever hope to reach these goals.
Those of us who govern can sometimes inspire, and we can identify needs and marshal resources, but we simply cannot be the managers of everything and everybody.
The State of the Union Address Delivered Before a Joint Session of the Congress. | The American Presidency Project
Not much difference between that and Reagan saying government was the problem.
Yes his presidency was a failure . But that was mostly because he had to fight his own party ;dominated by the likes of the radical lefty Teddy Kennedy (compared to him ;1972 Dem candidate George McGovern was a centrist ) . Ted was the leader of a very large lefty coalition (even more radical that LBJ ) who ascended to Congress in the wake of Watergate .
Carter was an outsider .He did not outright promise to drain the swamp. But he did have a reform agenda. He just failed at it.
He inherited the economy that LBJ left Nixon ;and Nixon being a New Dealer himself could not fix (also Nixon was handcuffed with the primary mission of ending the Vietnam war).
But Carter left the seeds in place for the Reagan revolution. Ideas like lower taxes were crafted by Carter in 1977 ; passed in 1978 .
Tax Reduction and Reform Message to the Congress. | The American Presidency Project
Eventually Reps Kemp and Roth crafted similar cuts that Reagan signed in 1981
Under Carter trucking ;rail roads ,airlines ,natural gas ,and communications were deregulated .
Much of the inflation that did him in was caused by Fed Reserve policy under G William Miller . Much of the taming of inflation happened because Carter replaced him with Paul Volker .
Carter was pro-military and reversed the trend of declining defense budgets after Vietnam.
He was hopelessly naive regarding his belief that there could be an accommodation with communist regimes. He learned his lesson when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan .
He failed to recognize the role that radical Islam would play in the future.
Despite his many foreign policy failures , he had a major achievement in bringing peace to Egypt and Israel ....a peace that lasts to this day. His emphasis on human rights was a mixed bag. But it did help set the stage for the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
He tapped into conservative religious advocacy .He was a moral man . Looking back ;his scandalous admission that he sometimes commits adultery in his heart is quaint comparted to many of our public leader's morals today. America would be better off if more people adopted his personal and family values.
His post Presidency is labelled as a success because of his good deeds. In many ways it was . His charitable work was outstanding. Some of his diplomatic interventions were productive.
But there are a few things that undermine the work he did before and after his term.
First and foremost he became of voice of hatred against Israel. He wrote a whole book accusing them of apartheid. His efforts there were one sided against Israel.
Second ;his interventions in North Korea led to the failed 'Agreed Framework ' that the Norks routinely violated to a point where they are essentially a nuclear power today.
His Panama Canal treaty is a problem we are dealing with today .
And of course his handling of the hostage crisis became the template for future hostage takings by radical Islam.