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The “super committee” of six Republican and six Democratic lawmakers charged by the US Congress to try and work out a deal on reducing America’s deficit declared defeat on Monday,as the deadline it had been given to agree on a compromise deficit-reduction formula ran out with no sign of agreement. The months-long process having failed,the baseline cuts that were agreed on earlier — more as an inducement to agreement than anything else,since nobody really wanted cuts in that pattern — will come into effect. In the process,America is in for more government deadlock,its footprint in the world will be forced to shrink,and its — and,therefore,the world’s — economic recovery will be further threatened.

The disagreement between Democrats and Republicans on the super committee was relatively simple,mirroring the larger divide in American politics. While all claimed agreement on the urgency of the problem,Democrats wanted a change in the tax structure and protection of welfare programmes like social security and Medicare; Republicans wanted to reduce taxes on the wealthy,cut entitlements and protect defence spending. Indeed,Republicans in Congress,including all six on the super committee,had their hands practically tied by having signed an anti-tax pledge being pushed by long-time tax hawk Grover Norquist,who was described as “the thirteenth member” of the super committee by some lawmakers. In effect,this failure will be viewed as a final badge on the dysfunctional nature of politics in Washington today,which gravely hampers the US’s reaction to its crucial economic and security tasks — a burden which affects all those embedded in the global economic and security architecture.

The immediate effects are that there will continue to be paralysing debate on funding basic US government activity,which is only funded till December 16. The automatic cuts that kick in focus on “payroll taxes” which employers and employees pay,which will cut into jobs growth,raising expenses for American corporations and halting the recovery. Some entitlements and local spending are slashed,too,further empowering Occupy Wall Street-style protests. Meanwhile,there will be cuts in defence spending,which cannot but alter global estimations of the reliability of American security commitments. Regardless of who is to blame,optimistic Republicans,intransigent Democrats,or a rudderless White House,Washington’s failure to discover long-term solutions to America’s problems is bad news for the rest of us.