The deep state gave Carter hell from day one.....but he kept the budget fairly stable. Every other prez has ballooned the budget and quite frankly anybody can stimulate the economy if you're printing dollars. So the economy was rather flat under his tenure......Carter was perceived as weak and once he gave away the panama canal most any supporters he had left. The Iran crisis sealed the deal as he vacillated on that. When Reagan was elected he barrowed money like it was going out of style and so the economy took a turn up and stayed that way.