April indeed is the cruelest month.

The kitchen table is littered with state and federal tax forms.

Snow is spitting by the kitchen window.

The news is that on April 2, the national debt totaled more than $3 trillion.

It is ironic, frustrating and very unpleasant to stand at a mailbox in April, ripped by a bitter wind, far poorer for having greased the machines in Augusta and Washington, and to hear the former plead for more revenue and the latter, already having given up the battle, announce the depth of its defeat.

Three trillion. That’s 3,000,000,000,000 … nine times the accumulated debt incurred in fighting World War II … $12,000 worth of red ink for every man, woman and child in America…and worst of all, it’s getting bigger every day.

But even in Maine and in other states accustomed to making a “profit” on their federal taxes (Maine in the ’80s got back $1.26 for each federal tax dollar sent in), there is late acknowledgment that the money isn’t worth the price, that the cost, ultimately, is too high, and that the 26 cents, in Maine’s case, was nothing more than money borrowed from its own future.