The act was passed. Unemployment peaked at 10 percent in October 2009 and in October 2012 was 7.9 percent. In other words, even with Obama’s $831 billion package, unemployment peaked later, peaked higher, and remains higher than in the doomsday scenario he said would befall America if the ARRA wasn’t passed. Unemployment was wedged above 8 percent for 43 consecutive months, the longest period since the Great Depression. The American economy underperformed even Obama’s own worst case scenario.

But even these dreadful figures might not tell us the whole story. America’s unemployment figures are notorious for their unreliability. Those who just stop looking for work are not counted as unemployed. So many Americans lost hope of finding a job in Obama’s America that in September 2012 the Labor Force Participation Rate fell to its lowest since 1981. If the LFPR was the same as when Obama took office unemployment would be a staggering 10.6 percent.

And even this might understate matters. If unemployment was measured now the same way it was in the 1930s, today’s level would be higher than in any single year of the Great Depression. That is why Obama didn’t run on his record; it’s awful. Instead his pitch was ‘Give a guy a second chance’ like some desperate ex-boyfriend.

And now he’s going to try taxing. But here’s the problem: last year the Federal government’s unfunded liabilities, which includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, all programs Obama has no plans to reform, increased by $11 trillion to $222 trillion. To put this in context, the entire American economy is just $15 trillion. If you expropriated the entire wealth of the richest 400 Americans and left them on food stamps you would take $1.7 trillion – it wouldn’t make a dent. All Americans will face huge tax rises.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that there are no second acts in American lives. Obama must hope he was wrong. As Jay Leno put it, “Economists say we’re heading for a fiscal cliff and we elected a guy whose campaign slogan is ‘Forward!’” Barack Obama: the Thelma and Louise President. 

John Phelan is a Contributing Editor for The Commentator and a Fellow at the Cobden Centre. He has also written for City AM and Conservative Home and he blogs at Manchester Liberal. Follow him on Twitter @TheBoyPhelan