Agreed. There will be no soft landing. It will be very, very hard. Our country will start sliding toward 2nd world nation status. The quality of food, goods, and services will drop while prices rise. Expect food and fuel shortages in some areas. Prices increases will result in increased "assistance" for the poor, and increased taxes to pay for it. When the system collapses, there will be riots. Major population centers may experience widespread looting.
Good thing that the gov't will have outlawed most effective private arms. This will ensure that gov't agents can defend themselves and the gov't from the angry mobs. Private citizens will have no such protections, however.
In all of this, please remember that soylent green is actually made of people. Soylent red and yellow might be unpalatable, but green is made of people.
All in all, we are probably SOL at this point. Once broken, our country would be largely beyond repair. It might be possible that some states or municipalities may actually be able to return to some sensible order, but all in all, the situation would be bad. And once te US falls, the rest of the world will probably follow suit. Hope we're all ready for a second dark age.