President Obama inherited a mess of an economy and has really turned it around. People seem to have trouble understanding this, though, so I thought I’d answer some common questions about the economy to explain what a great job he’s been doing and why he deserves reelection.

REELECT OBAMA FAQ: THE ECONOMY

Q. Obama was elected in large part because of the problems in the economy, but four years later the economy is in even worse shape. Why, then, should we reelect him?

A. Because Obama has lots of plans to get the economy going and create jobs. Romney doesn’t have a plan except to ride his car elevator and laugh at poor people.

Q. Plans? Hasn’t Obama been president for four years? Why hasn’t he already implemented his plans?

A. He has, and he’s done a great job with the economy! The recovery is in full force! Better stand out of the way of the economy – it’s raging!

Q. So are you claiming that what we see now is a good job with the economy?

A. Well, not all of Obama’s great ideas have been implemented, because the Republicans keep blocking his plans.

Q. So Obama hasn’t done a good job with the economy, and you’re blaming that on Republicans?

A. No, Obama has been a huge success, and his policies have created millions and millions of jobs! Oh! Wow! So many jobs!

Q. If Obama’s policies have made millions of jobs, why is unemployment higher than when he started, and why was it over 8% for well over forty months?

A. Because of BUSH! He was a very bad president, and he’s still on the loose, hurting the economy and losing jobs. Hopefully one day he can be captured and stopped.

Q. I’m a little confused. Are you claiming that Obama has put in place successful policies that have fixed the economy, or that he’s been completely impotent to fix things because of the Republicans and Bush?

A. Obama has done a great job, except for all this unprecedented opposition from the Republicans.

Q. Unprecedented? Hasn’t every president had to deal with an opposition party? Is Obama just much worse at that than all previous presidents?

A. No, it’s the Republicans that are much worse. They are the Party of No. They say no to everything. Obama is like, “Want to spend a few trillion more dollars?” and they say, “No!” What a bunch of jerks.

Q. Won’t the Republicans still be around in the next Obama term? Does that mean there will just be four more years of Obama complaining that the Republicans are blocking everything?

A. No, the Republicans will be cowed into doing everything Obama says when he tells them, “I won. Again.”

Q. But didn’t Obama have a majority in the House and a sixty seat majority in the Senate during his first two years as president? Why didn’t he just pass all his brilliant ideas then?

A. He did! He passed some great things, like the stimulus, and that other thing that we don’t need to spend a lot of time discussing other than to say that it was widely hailed as kinda constitutional.

Q. But wasn’t the stimulus a big failure? By Obama’s predictions, wasn’t unemployment supposed to never go above 8% and be below 6% by now?

A. Obama made those predictions before he knew exactly how bad things were. That awful Bush strikes again! We need a nationwide manhunt to find him and stop him!

Q. So you’re saying Obama spent like a trillion dollars based on bad data?

A. No, it was still a huge success and saved millions of jobs and helped grow our economy. Better stand back – that economy is going to explode… in growth!

Q. It’s years later, and growth is barely over 1%. Hasn’t this been the slowest recovery ever, and thus wasn’t the stimulus a big failure?

A. Well, more needs to be done, but did I mention about those nasty Republicans stopping Obama?

Q. It still just seems like a huge failure, especially considering that we’ve gotten this anemic growth at the cost of a massive increase in the national debt. Didn’t Obama promise to halve the deficit?

A. And Obama has presided over a government that has had the lowest spending rate in decades.

Q. Wait! What?!

A. Lowest rate in decades.

Q. The national debt has gone up $5 trillion dollars! What in the world are you talking about?

A. Lowest rate in decades. Fact checkers will back me up on this.

Q. The debt has gone up from $11 trillion to $16 trillion. For the first time ever, the country’s credit rating was downgraded. Are you insane?

A. While Obama has been in office, the deficit has increased at a really low rate.

Q. Wait a second. So Obama received a record deficit because we were fighting two wars and promised to halve it, and you want us to give him credit for only increasing it a little bit?

A. Obama is thrifty.

Q. And didn’t Obama want to spend even more than he has but was stopped by Congress and the Party of No?

A. Well, maybe Obama hasn’t done the greatest job on debt, but that’s because of his laser-like focus on jobs.

Q. What laser-like focus? Didn’t he use up all his political capital on ObamaCare – a program Americans didn’t want that has nothing to do with jobs?

A. It’s sorta jobs-related, because people often get health insurance through their jobs. So maybe it’s more of a shotgun focus on jobs – you know, hitting jobs and things around jobs, like health insurance.

Q. And what was all the time he spent taking on religious liberty to give a 30-year-old Georgetown law student free birth control?

A. Because… um… people will work harder knowing that Sandra Fluke won’t accidentally reproduce.

Q. And why does Obama spend so much time talking about raising taxes on the rich? How does raising taxes help with jobs?

A. Because… um… er… fairness.

Q. How is Obama supposed to help create jobs when he seems to have so much contempt for small business owners, as demonstrated by his “you didn’t build that” speech?

A. That speech was taken out of context. Obama was simply making the point that the government builds the roads and bridges that businesses need to operate.

Q. Why did Obama, who has never run a business in his life, feel the need to give a patronizing lecture to business owners about who makes roads and bridges? Shouldn’t they be lecturing him?

A. No. One of the biggest economic hurdles we face is the arrogance of small business owners, who won’t admit that they owe us for all those roads and bridges. Only Obama is willing to put them in their place.

Q. Should we take as an indication of which candidate is better on jobs the fact that polls show small business owners overwhelmingly prefer Governor Romney?

A. The reason small business owners like Romney is because they know they can just push him around, making their businesses wherever they want. We need Obama, because he will give the business owners a good smack, keep them in line, and tell them, “Hey, you lazy bums, we did the hard part; we made the roads and bridges. Now just make your businesses along them, and shut up!”

Q. It still seems a lot like Obama is hostile to business. How can we trust him to help with jobs?

A. Maybe Obama doesn’t like all the businesses that are so focused on silly things like profit, but he’s invested lots of money in green jobs.

Q. Like the $500 million he invested in the now bankrupt Solyndra?

A. They certainly didn’t make an evil profit. But don’t forget Obama’s brilliant plan that saved the jobs at General Motors.

Q. What brilliant plan? All he did was throw a bunch of money we don’t have at GM, and it’s still a failing business. It really doesn’t seem like Obama has much business sense.

A. That’s because businesses are stupid. And why is everyone so obsessed with jobs, anyway? Haven’t you heard how easy it is to get food stamps now? And if you end your foolish endeavor to find a job, you no longer count in the unemployment rate and can help bring it down. So do your part, and just give up.

Q. It still seems like Obama has done an awful job with the economy, and there’s no indication he has any better plans for his next term.

A. What are you talking about? He’s got lots of great plans, like more spending to stimulate the economy and higher taxes on the rich.

Q. Tax and spend?

A. That counts as a plan. So expect great economic growth in Obama’s next term – unless Bush is still around causing trouble and the Republicans don’t do everything Obama tells them to do and those stupid business owners get all snotty.

Q. And the deficit?

A. We’ll have the lowest spending ever. Just like now.

Q. You’re psychotic.

A. Not so loud! Bush might hear us and ruin our plans. He’s always out there, and I hear he can take many forms. Like he could be that squirrel over there. Wait. Why is it looking at me? Is that Bush? KILL THAT SQUIRREL!

And vote Obama 2012. Forward!

Frank J. Fleming is the author of the books “How to Fix Everything in America Forever: The Plan to Keep America Awesome” (out now) and “Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything” (free for a limited time), writes columns for PJ Media and the New York Post, blogs at IMAO.us, and would vote a hundred times for Obama is not for Idaho’s racist voter ID law.