The Congressional Budget Office tells us that Medicare spending has increased fivefold in the past 42 years, dramatically more than all other categories of federal spending.

Obama ran on a platform of unmitigated optimism - a promise to usher in a brighter day for America. But there could hardly be a greater contrast between his pledge and his performance in office, between his commitment to the nation and his current abandonment of all hope.

Americans were outraged and horrified by this president's reckless spending and his endless assaults on the Constitution, but no issue drove them to rise up and fight back like Obamacare - both the abominable legislative monstrosity itself and the tyrannical, corrupt manner by which Obama crammed it through the legislative process.

Though there are many differences between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, they are strikingly similar in their poor economic records and even more so in their shared pessimism and bearishness on America.