As the acrimonious debate gets even nastier, a stern warning from the IMF

Interesting to track this debate, as there seems to be three camps: one that thinks Obama is a terrible leader and that the GOP proposals are worth considering (WSJ), one that thinks he's the man and the GOP proposals amount to "sadism" (see Esquire's The Politics Blog in a virtuoso display of ad hominem attacks- and no, I am most definitely not part of that "Collective" and wish the writers there would simply identify themselves) and then there's the tiny apparent middle that wants serious action and hopes some actual negotiations come about, but since our adjectives and adverbs lacks the same hyperbole as the extremes, if we open our mouths we are ridiculed for not condemning the "obvious" threat to humanity/decency on this one.

So much for post-partisanship.  The politicians and punditry seem as out of control as ever.

Meanwhile, the IMF, in which we own the most votes, says we lack a "credible strategy" to stabilize our public debt, noting that we're the only major economy that is increasing its budget deficit when its growth is sufficient to start decreasing its debt accumulation.  And as it looks, we'll be the only advanced country, along with messed-up Japan, still increasing our public debt come 2016.

The IMF says we're less than halfway there on both the cuts and the tax increases needed.  Conveniently, we have two parties deeply committed to preventing both solutions but no leadership among the collective able to forge the combined solution.

We can get away with this for a while, but it is a selfish track that will increasingly engender blowback from the world - as it should.  We're behaving and speaking like children, and it's embarrassing to be an American these days.