“I think for my part one half of the nation is mad — and the other not very sound.”

Smollett, writing in the mid-18th century, very accurately captured our times, as well. The world seems truly to have gone mad.

Nationally, the man who could do no wrong was elected, replacing the man who could do no right. One of the things he could not do right was to balance his income with his spending. Hence, he had a horrible “deficit,” totaling more than $500 billion. He got us into a war we militarily won quickly but to date have not convinced the people they needed saving. Ditto for Afghanistan.

On the home front, the man who could do no wrong — who promised to end the war, balance the budget and cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans and throw in health care free of charge — won hands down.

So successful is he that the budget deficit is now $1.8 trillion and climbing, combat troops by the hundred thousand still roam Iraq, we’re pouring more troops into Afghanistan and the much-despised “neoconservatives,” now the new man’s advisers, are counseling expanding the wars into Pakistan and Iran. But we can’t blame the man who can do no wrong — after all, he “inherited” this mess.

Well, yes and no. Mr. Obama voted in favor of Bush’s budget-busting bills; his biggest complaint was Bush didn’t spend enough. “Universal health care,” that magic economic pill everyone somehow gets to swallow for free, gagged in the throat of Bush but was the magic elixir for Dr. Obama. “Voodoo economics,” the term big daddy Bush coined to mock Reagan’s financial theories, fits well in today’s government financial world of smoke and mirrors.

Now that we see the spending levels voodoo doctor Obama desired, the “I inherited this mess” argument pales into insignificance. The combat troops he promised would be out within 60 days are still there and being redeployed in an ever-growing cycle. Printing money to pay our bills, the historic curse and death sentence of paper money systems, is what the witch doctors have prescribed.

Failed businesses that are “too big to fail” are now embalmed corpses propped up with frail government sticks, trying to convince the world their carcasses only need Obama’s Lazarus touch: a mainlined, dirty-needle fix of quickly printed cash. Their bankrupt portfolios are placed in a “debt” bank, where all the “bad debt” goes away, as Obama the magician waves his magic wand. Red ink turns black, and the witch doctor simply twitched the bone through his nose to make it all happen. Next are three clicks of his ruby red slippers and the combat troops will awaken in Kansas.

Here in the Silver State, I have spent a lot of time recently at the Legislature, a rather gloomy place with lots of programs and no money. The governor’s projected revenues, already expected to be lean, were even lower than anticipated, and, with the Nevada Constitution having a balanced budget amendment, the Keynesian strategy of borrowing and spending is forbidden (a brief window of fiscal sanity). Tough decisions have to be made, and the instinct of a Democrat-dominated body is to raise taxes (the Republican instinct is to borrow; both spend with equal abandon). This has run into a huge roadblock, and no, it’s not Gov. Gibbons’ “no new taxes” pledge. It’s more basic: There is no one with deep pockets to tap. Think about it: Who is doing well? Gaming? No. Construction? No. Real Estate? Dropping like a rock. Sales? Already taxed too much. Mining? Gold prices are stimulating, but mining’s total gross is too low to get much. There is no sizeable, untapped source. They cannot balance the budget by increasing taxes. The only alternative is to cut spending, an especially painful process for officials concerned with re-election.

So, we seek quack cures and pray for miracles. Madness is infectious. Nationally, and to some extent locally, some are definite prospects for the loony bin. Yet who to blame? The quack we elected or the people who willingly drank the Kool-Aid?

Ira Hansen is a lifelong resident of Sparks and owner of Ira Hansen and Sons Plumbing.