RECOVERY SUMMER II? The sequel won’t be as good as the original, and the original stunk. Michael Walsh: Who’ll Save Us From This “Recovery?”

Two years into the Obama administration, the country’s finances are a looming calamity. An unemployment rate of more than 8 percent has become the new normal, and even that understates real unemployment, because so many Americans have simply left the job market.

The $800 billion stimulus was a complete failure, unless you count “government jobs saved” as a useful goal. “Quantitative easing” — the Federal Reserve’s printing money to buy Treasury debt — has already failed twice, yet it’s being contemplated again.

And does anyone doubt Obama and the Democrats would have hiked taxes last fall had they not suffered such a humiliating defeat in the 2010 election?

Read the whole thing. And weep.