The New York Times today: “… many Congressional Republicans seem to be spoiling for a fight, calculating that some level of turmoil caused by a federal default might be what it takes to give them the chance to right the nation’s fiscal ship.”

In one of the more spectacular examples of political short-termism, it seems a large chunk of rank-and-file members of the GOP are willing to drive the US economy into a wall with their refusal to play ball with President Obama in his bid to lift the US debt ceiling.

As Harley Dennett wrote from DC in Crikey on Monday: “… there is now nobody from the Republican House leadership team willing to go back to the White House whilst modest revenue increases are on the table.”

The Washington gridlock means whichever way the vast majority of the American public look at it, they’re getting screwed. Remember this stand-off is set against the backdrop of huge unemployment numbers and a large number of Americans sinking into poverty. And yet … congressional Republican leaders are standing firm against raising taxes on the wealthy and businesses after 2013, and President Obama — giving new meaning to the term “lame duck” — is bending over even further promising deep spending cuts, including in Medicare and Medicaid, as part of a “balanced package”, much to the disgust of many Democrats.

In an indication of how nail-biting this stand-off has become, in an interview with CBS News, President Obama has said he “cannot guarantee” the government can pay benefits next month to Social Security recipients, veterans and the disabled if Congress does not increase the federal debt limit.

But as Dennett wrote, Republican Speaker John Boehner “is caught between a party base that refuses the compromise on its evolving anti-tax ideology, and a White House that is willing to play dirty politics”.

Congressional gridlock on this grand scale throws our own minority government into sharp relief.

Yes it has its imperfections — the poisonous political debate, the question time stunts and the communication failures — but by the end of the last budget session, more than 160 bills had been passed since the election. And whatever your thoughts on the Multi Party Climate Change Committee’s carbon pricing plan, you cannot accuse it of being short sighted. Something the US is suffering from a potentially fatal case of right now.