Finally, I find something worthwhile that Jimmuh Cahtah did while in office!!

7/23/2008 | vanity

[markomalley]

So there I was, watching Modern Marvels on the History Channel, and I saw one of their factoid splash screens that announced that home brewing was legalized by Bro. Jimmuh on October 14, 1978. Naturally, I almost lost an entire Weizen through my nose upon hearing this auspicious news. (No, I was able to control myself, so there was no abuse of good Schneider Weisse)

I thought to myself, this CANNOT be! Removing government control on some aspect of life? Carter? Nah, could never happen!

Rather than take the word of the MSM, I got on the 'puter and took a look. Sure enough, it was true. (See the google results here)

Well, folks, it's hard for me to swallow my pride and admit I'm wrong, but I guess that I can no longer say that Bro. Jimmuh never did anything right while in office. If he did something right, at least it was for beer!

Prosit!

[markomalley]

Just goes to show that the truism, even a broken clock is right twice a day, has some merit.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Having lived through the Jimmah debacle, I can point to one item that was a good idea but never went anywhere.
Cahtah wanted to issue an order to move all industrial boilers and utilities to coal and ban the use of nat gas as a substitute. Trouble is, Mr. Peanut also signed a federal mining law that put 95 percent of the small coal mines (less than 200,000 tons/yr) out of business.

[50cal Smokepole]

Actually, the bill was supposed to TAX home brew, but a typical snafu squirreled the bill and he never caught it, the dim bulb..... ;-) j/k This is news to me.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

You should have asked before! I could have told you what it was.

He got the White House tennis court reservations organized.

[giotto]

Didn’t his loser brother have some kind of a home brew called Billy Beer or something? That’s probably the reason for Carter legalizing home brewing.

[markomalley]

I drank exactly one sip of that slop.

Not even good enough to feed to pigs.

[M203M4]

IIRC, it was a large bill containing many items that Congress passed, and Carter signed it. He probably just overlooked the homebrew provision, signing the legislation for its welfare handouts.

[markomalley]

Actually, the bill was supposed to TAX home brew, but a typical snafu squirreled the bill and he never caught it, the dim bulb..... ;-) j/k This is news to me.

Reading up on it, it was a Republican who introduced it into Congress. Of course...

[Libertarianize the GOP]

Carter also started the idea of cost benefit analysis when applying Nixon's EPA rules. While he was a catastrophe as President he had a few good ideas that Reagan then went on to expand. One of Carter's biggest problems was as an outsider he never learned to cut deals with Congress even though they were Democrats. As much as I liked Reagan’s rhetoric he was, in my opinion at the time, too willing to cut deals with Tip O'Neil in order to get things done. Politics is the art of the possible, Reagan new that Carter never did.

[LS]

He continued, but did not start, a deregulation of airlines, trucking, natural gas, and utilities that brought savings to millions of Americans. Actually, the program was begun through Ted Kennedy, then-advisor Steven Breyer, Alfred Kahn, and Milton Friedman. Ralph Nader even supported deregulation at the time.

[markomalley]

IIRC, it was a large bill containing many items that Congress passed, and Carter signed it. He probably just overlooked the homebrew provision, signing the legislation for its welfare handouts.

According to the summary on Thomas,

95th Congress, HR 1337:

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to provide that the constructive retail sales prices for computing the manufacturers excise tax on heavy bus, trucks, and bus and truck bodies and chassis shall be based on the highest price such articles are normally sold for by manufacturers and producers.

Allows any adult (formerly only heads of families) to produce wine and beer for personal and family use and not for sale without incurring the wine or beer excise taxes or any penalties for quantities per calendar year of: (1) 200 gallons if there are two or more adults in the household and (2) 100 gallons if there is only one adult in the household.

Entitles aerial applicators who use tax-paid fuel for farming purposes to refunds of gasoline or special fuels taxes in place of any farmer who waives the right to such refunds.

Permits an employee in a qualified trust to transfer all or part of the total taxable amount of a termination or discontinuance distribution or a lump sum distribution to an eligible rollover source without such amount being included in gross income. Defines "eligible rollover source" as: (1) an individual retirement account; (2) an individual retirement annuity; (3) a retirement bond; (4) a qualified trust; or (5) an annuity plan. Permits special "makeup" rollovers for certain individuals who failed in their attempts to comply with the previous requirement that all property received in such distributions be transferred.

Amends the Social Security Act to permit the State of California to continue cash payments to supplemental security income recipients in lieu of food stamps.

[yarddog]

One thing I remember about Jimmy is he was such a liar. He publicly claimed to be a teetotaler, but several people who knew him said he was a regular consumer of whiskey.

I don’t care if he was or wasn’t just that he lied about it.

[scrabblehack]

Hmm...if this law were actually constitutional, why was it necessary to pass the 18th Amendment?

[dalereed]

If you had ever drank a can of Billy Beer you would know why.

We did a remodel of a beer distributer that many brands and he told my men that they could take all the Billy beer they wanted.

One of my men brought 6 cases of it into the office and after one can the rest of it went on the truck on the next trip to the dump!