Billy Beer!!!

The Camp David Peace Accords between Begin and Sadat.

i like jimmy carter and i believe that he's done more following his presidency than any other president. thus, i with great sadness, say, the most important achievement during his presidency was the transfer of power in 1981.

Wikipedia says that the only legacy was the Camp David Accord between Egypt and Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter I agree that it was important to Egypt to get back almost all of the land lost in the six day war against Israel. But if you are Israeli, it was a US strong arm job which reduced Israel's buffer zones and removed a lot of trading equity from future negotiations for no real benefit. So my conclusion; Jimmy Carter's most important achievement was to keep his tenure brief. Four years of his guidance was enough.

Carter could point to a number of achievements in domestic affairs. He dealt with the energy shortage by establishing a national energy policy and by decontrolling domestic petroleum prices to stimulate production. He prompted Government efficiency through civil service reform and proceeded with deregulation of the trucking and airline industries. He sought to improve the environment. His expansion of the national park system included protection of 103 million acres of Alaskan lands. To increase human and social services, he created the Department of Education, bolstered the Social Security system, and appointed record numbers of women, blacks, and Hispanics to Government jobs. In foreign affairs, Carter set his own style. His championing of human rights was coldly received by the Soviet Union and some other nations. In the Middle East, through the Camp David agreement of 1978, he helped bring amity between Egypt and Israel. He succeeded in obtaining ratification of the Panama Canal treaties. Building upon the work of predecessors, he established full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and completed negotiation of the SALT II nuclear limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.

His most important achievement was losing to Regan in 1980. Thank God Carter was only there for 4 years!

He boosted the sweater industry with his call to lower thermostats in winter. Too bad he didn't do something proactive about the energy crisis back then.

Billy Beer

As president, Carter created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II). Carter sought to put a stronger emphasis on human rights; he negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. His return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama was seen as a major concession of US influence in Latin America, and Carter came under heavy criticism for it. His term came during a period of persistent stagflation in a number of countries, including the United States, which significantly damaged his popularity. The final year of his presidential tenure was marked by several major crises, including the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Iran and holding of hostages by Iranian students, an unsuccessful rescue attempt of the hostages, serious fuel shortages, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. By 1980, Carter's disapproval ratings were significantly higher than his approval, and he was challenged by Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980 election. Carter defeated Kennedy for the nomination, but lost the election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter

In his inaugural address he said: "We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems."[1] Carter had campaigned on a promise to eliminate the trappings of the "Imperial Presidency," and he began taking action according to that promise on Inauguration Day, breaking with recent history and security protocols by walking up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House in his inaugural parade. His first steps in the White House went further in this direction: Carter reduced the size of the staff by one-third; canceled government-funded chauffeur service for Cabinet members, ordering them to drive their own cars; and put the USS Sequoia, the presidential yacht up for sale.