The word from the companies that evaluate sovereign debt is that the U.S. government has used up its last time-out on its massive indebtedness.

There will be no downgrades as a result of the supercommittee’s long-expected failure and likely none for the next year as a fickle American electorate decides whether it is going back into the arms of the Obama Democrats or will stay on the run with the GOP.

The message from Fitch Ratings on Monday: Have your election, make up your mind and then do something quick. This reinforces the fact that however the election goes – revenge of the left, affirmation of the right or some muddle – there will be very little time in which to make some dramatic moves to curb the exploding debt. Like maybe five weeks.

The 2012 election looks mostly to be about how America should deal with this debt. President Obama argues that the debt cannot be addressed without taxing top-earners more, while Republicans are looking for changes in eligibility to entitlement programs. Neither answer is sufficient.

Obama’s tax hikes might be a matter of principle to the left, but wouldn’t raise enough money. The Republican ideas would deal with long-term problems but not the very real cash crunch facing the U.S. in the next three years. And both ideas are electorally unappealing. Who wants to run on a tax increase or a benefits cut?

But the electorate is now keenly aware that something is very, very wrong with our federal finances. Having the world’s largest military, the planet’s reserve currency and competitors even more fiscally insane than Washington have shielded the U.S. from the worst of being a desperately indebted nation, so far. But there is a feeling among independent voters that things are badly out of control...