Feb. 17 marked the third birthday of the Obama stimulus program.

When he pitched it three years ago, Obama promised 6 percent unemployment by now. Even using the phony Obama numbers, we currently stand at 8.3 percent.

I prefer to trust the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office numbers, which report unemployment at 15 percent. Obama has simply removed unemployed Americans who haven't looked for a new job in as little as four weeks.

Even using Obama's fudged numbers (8.3 percent), we are enduring the longest stretch of high unemployment exceeding 8 percent since the Great Depression. The CBO projects that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014.

Making matters worse, in 2009 the percentage of unemployed people who have been looking for a job for six months or more exceeded 40 percent for the first time since such records began to be recorded, in 1948. It has remained above 40 percent during the entire Obama presidency.

Have you ever wondered why Obama is not labeled this era's Herbert Hoover? Obama has amassed trillions of dollars of debt. We have lived for more than 1,000 days without an approved federal budget.

Obama can't get a single U.S. senator to vote for his budget. Last year, Obama's budget was voted down 98-0. His latest budget is $1.4 trillion in the red.

The CBO has confirmed that more than 90 percent of the Obama stimulus program has already been felt. What do we have to show for it after spending $825 billion in federal tax dollars?

Complicating hopes of renewed financial stability in America is the fact that gasoline has already exceeded $4 a gallon in parts of the country.

Here's a statistic that the media doesn't tell you: For every penny that the price of a gallon of gasoline rises, we lose $1 billion in discretionary spending in the economy.

On Dec. 31, 2008 crude oil prices were less than $37 a barrel, and the United States average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline fell to a five-year low of $1.61.

In this region it now has exceeded $3.50 per gallon. My hunch is that when it hits $4 per  gallon, people will start to pay attention.  At $4 a gallon, the average family will spend about 10 percent of its income on gasoline.

It's outrageous and completely unnecessary. We have the ability to become self-sufficient for the next 100 to 150 years. We have the technology and the resources to do it.

The radical left, with Obama at his political altar, want gasoline to be $5 a gallon. Obama said this as a candidate. Should you be surprised now that their policies have resulted in such high oil – and let's not forget about natural gas prices.

In the age of Obama, look where we are now. The radical Obama policies have led to a disastrous decline in domestic oil production. Obama killed the Keystone Pipeline project and his worshipping of the extreme liberal agenda to require expensive gasoline blending has led us to the present crisis.

In 2007, the forecast was for production of 850 million barrels of oil on federal lands for 2010. The actual number realized was 714 million barrels. Private lands, North Dakota in particular, have helped.

So, as we honor the third anniversary of Obama's failed stimulus program, remember that he promised his $825 billion porkulus package would create 3.5 million jobs. Instead, we have lost 1.2 million jobs – a negative swing of 4.7 million jobs.

Poverty and the use of food stamps by Americans have skyrocketed under Obama.

The percentage of those who pay no taxes in America has risen to 49½ percent, which means that half of America currently supports the other half.

The Scottish professor Alexander Tyler said the following in 1787:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years."

This is exactly where we find ourselves today. The survival of America hangs in the balance.

Harry Hurley is president of Harry Hurley Consulting and Communications LLC. He hosts the daily talk radio program "Hurley in the Afternoon" noon-4 p.m. weekdays on Longport Media, News Talk 1400 WOND Radio. He has hosted various programs for local television and is the editor and publisher of his news and information website, www.HarryHurley.com. Comment at www.shorenewstoady.com.