When Congress cut tax rates for all taxpayers, it was a wholly benign act. There were no victims, period. Congress did not -- by cutting everyone's tax rate -- unjustly take money from anyone. Nor did taxpayers whose top rate dropped from 36 percent to 33 percent, allowing them to keep more of their own money, commit an act of aggression -- financially or otherwise -- against taxpayers whose top rate dropped from 28 percent to 25 percent.

But what about in the financial fiasco? Are there are unjust aggressors and true victims at the core of this crisis?

Absolutely. But the dividing line is not an income bracket, because people of all incomes are on both sides of this conflict. If you want to know which side you are on, just answer this question: Are you getting bailed out? Or does the government expect you to bail someone else out?

On one side are Americans who rely on themselves. On the other side are Americans who rely on the federal government -- and politicians who exploit that reliance to gain and maintain political power, and corporate bureaucrats who exploit that reliance to get money.

On one side are Americans who exhibited the ancient virtues of hard work, thrift and prudence. The people who never bought -- and never would buy -- a house they could not afford. These people will pay for the bailout.

On the other side are Americans who exhibited a core vice of the welfare state: wanting something they did not earn. They took out a mortgage they could not afford, or from a position of government power pushed public policies promoting mortgages to people who could not afford them, or profited within some corporate bureaucracy from wholesale commerce in such mortgages. These are the people who will benefit from the bailout.

What is the solution? Roll back government dependency in all its forms. As long as the federal government maintains a welfare state, there will be politicians in Washington, D.C., who have an interest in increasing the number of people who will need bailouts and decreasing the number of people who pay.