Dismal new employment figures – the worst for a year, threatening a double-dip recession – provide the setting for Barack Obama’s address to Congress on Thursday. With his poll numbers sliding and the US economy getting worse, this might be the most important speech of his presidency. What should he say?

He needs to be bold – but not in the way his party would like. He should propose a strong new stimulus, more ambitious than the measures mooted so far. At the same time, with new and equal emphasis, he should call for strong fiscal restraint in the longer term. This means tax increases for the middle class as well as the rich, and cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The president, finally, must spell this out.

Political suicide? We will come to that shortly. First things first.