After the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, your administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling — ostensibly until you could figure out if it was safe to continue drilling.

Your administration has spent record sums, ballooned the deficit, called for higher taxes, issued blizzards of regulations, enacted a mammoth restructuring of the health-care industry, and passed an $814 billion stimulus. Now, two-and-a-half years into your term, unemployment is at 9.1 percent, real wages are in decline, manufacturing is down, retail sales are torpid, consumer confidence is plunging, the housing market is eviscerated, first quarter GDP has tanked, businesses are afraid to hire, and your principal economic advisers have fled.

Yesterday you admitted that “we don’t yet know whether this [rise in unemployment] is a one-month episode or a longer trend.”

Why don’t you impose a moratorium on spending, taxes, regulations, and restructuring the health-care industry until you figure it out?