As the ever-increasing stench of socialism wafts from the halls of our legislative branch, one must take pause to wonder exactly how we got to where we are today economically. Yes, I know that there has been a lot of pausing and wondering going on lately. What ticks me off is that it seems that very few of those who are pausing and wondering seem to be able to form the words to express the reality of what they have determined to be true, which is: that the single most significant root cause for today's economic dilemma is the erosion of income for the American middle class private sector.

For the purposes of this piece, I'll state that I consider the "middle class" to be those workers who earn between $14,000 and $125,000 per year. That covers just about every worker from entry level manufacturing to first tier management. We create the bulk of real wages that move throughout this country. We also pay virtually all of the taxes in this country. Never mind that corporations pay huge sums in corporate taxes every year, because the fact of the matter is, they collect those sums from us at the consumer level. Yes, we pay those corporate tax bills, and we know it.

What will it take to break the downward cycle for the U.S. stock market and its economy? Get back to our roots as a country that lives within its means.

The source of the problem is that we have gotten away from the idea of paying only for things we can afford. To close that affordability gap that results from lower income and higher prices, we have borrowed money -- $9.3 trillion in federal debt, a $410 billion federal budget deficit, and $2.5 trillion in consumer borrowing -- which has caused other countries to view the dollar as a distress currency. It's lost 72% of its value since January 2001 -- when it traded at 92 cents to the euro.

Having spent the last two weeks in Europe, that weak currency hurts -- everything seems to be about 50% more expensive there than it is here. Gasoline there is far more expensive than it is in the U.S. -- roughly $9.60 a gallon compared to $4.25 here. And the reason that our stock market is dropping while oil rises is a result of deliberate government policies designed to weaken the dollar and strengthen oil.

In an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, Presidential candidate Barack Obama started to spell out his economic plan. Obama said that he would raise capital gains taxes, "Well, you know, I haven't given a firm number. Here's my belief, that we can't go back to some of the, you know, confiscatory rates that existed in the past that distorted sound economics. And I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was the 28 percent. I would--and my guess would be it would be significantly lower than that. I think that we can have a capital gains rate that is higher than 15 percent."

Just because the Senator got rich from his book doesn't mean that the rest of us should be punished for trying to grow our savings and our investments. Why should the middle-class have to pay higher capital gains tax so that Obama can bailout irresponsible home buyers?

Hasn't he learned economics? It's pretty clear that if you punish and make it harder for wealth creation and investment, that there won't be as much, and as a result the economy will get much worse.

When T.S. Eliot began The Waste Land noting that "April is the cruelest month," the American poet wasn't talking about tax season. But anyone who has ever been audited might adopt the phrase to suit their circumstances . . . and the month is rapidly becoming crueler and crueler each passing year.

According to an article in today's New York Times, the Internal Revenue Service has become increasingly more likely to audit middle-class Americans. In fact, since 2000, audits have nearly tripled among those taxpaying Americans who earn between $25,000 and $100,000 per year. During the past six years, middle-class households (who make up nearly half of all taxpayers) have seen their odds of an audit rise from 1 in 377 to 1 in 140.

Kevin Brown, the I.R.S. deputy commissioner, said the agency's audit practices previously paid too little attention to the middle class, focusing instead on those making $1 million or more. "We try to run a balanced audit program," he now confirms. Even with the ramped-up audits on the nation's middle class, those in the highest tax bracket remain more like to be audited. Taxpayers with income above $100,000 have a 1 in 59 chance of being audited; those fortunate enough to make $1 million or more enjoy the misfortune of a 1-in-16 chance of an audit. Finally, those making below $25,000 face only a 1 in 94 chance of enduring an audit.

If you are among the unlucky middle-class households to be audited, and if evidence of errors are found in your documents, the average penalty is about $4,100.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.