Carter Wouldn’t Take $2 Million--or Rap Reagan

CORONADO, Calif. —  Former President Jimmy Carter says he wouldn’t accept a $2-million appearance fee like the one his successor, Ronald Reagan, received during his recent trip to Japan.

“I’ve never been offered that much,” Carter joked Tuesday night before speaking to San Diego County business leaders about Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit group that helps low-income families worldwide build their own homes.

Carter refused, however, to criticize Reagan directly for reportedly accepting $2 million in speaking fees during his trip to Japan, including $1 million for a single speech to the Fujisankei Communications Group last week in Tokyo.

“I’ve never criticized what Presidents Nixon, Ford or Reagan do with their post-White House years,” he said when asked about Reagan’s fees. “But that’s not what I want out of life. We give money, we don’t take it.”

Carter, who has devoted much of his time since leaving the White House nearly nine years ago to the Habitat organization, did criticize the scandal-plagued government housing programs of the Reagan Administration.

“It was absolutely disgusting to see a whole bunch of rich friends of the President stealing millions of dollars from a program that had already been robbed of 85% of its resources,” Carter said.

Congress is looking into what happened to billions of taxpayer dollars intended to help shelter the nation’s poor through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.