The Wall Street Journal recently wrote: "As a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue."

My point precisely. No matter how much the government takes away, there will never be enough. The current plan of the government, I have read elsewhere, projects a stronger economy in two years than we have today. "Rosy" is too polite a term for that assumption, with the private economy collapsing almost daily. Nevertheless, the government believes that by increasing the taxes on the wealthiest to Clinton-era levels, we can have socialism without having to call it socialism. This is mind-numbing in its idiocy, in its evasion and in its break with reality. Welfare state liberalism--aka, American socialism--has reached a point where it does not follow logically, even on its own terms. Ignore the rights of those who earn their money. Forget the fact that the economy is now declining, not expanding as it was in 2006 and 2005. Forget all the evidence that shows government generally gets more revenue when it cuts taxes. Disregard the common sense that a government running trillions of dollars in deficits and debt is totally, and likely permanently, in the red--even in an economy that were to grow again, although that economy cannot possibly grow under the coming regulatory and tax burden. Indeed, the economy stopped growing under the existing tax and regulatory burden, which our new President and Congress claim was way, way too low!

I don't know if the world has truly gone mad. I know that our government has. I know that the American people who actually buy into this are mad. And then there are those who turn the other way and tell themselves, "Well they're smart people; they'll fix this somehow." It doesn't matter how smart they are. Some of the smartest people I have ever encountered are insane; or drug addicts; or alcoholics. What good does "smart" do you when you're completely wrong and irrational?

Things are worse than ever before, politically and economically. America is about to hit bottom. Hitting bottom is not necessarily the end. It might be, but I don't assume it will be. It could be a new beginning. Most of us alive today will live to see how it plays out.