built up a huge amount of debt now to the place where debt and interest carrying exceeds their growth," Mauldin says in the attached video clip. Basically, Italy is where where the U.S. would be if our cost of borrowing on a 10yr were an Italian-style +6%, instead of the 1.8% yield we pay now.

Mauldin says the U.S. has two choices between now and what he sees as a 2013 collapse: "You either die or you get your act together."

The latter means deficit reduction, ideally at a controlled pace. In one way or another, whether it's by spending reductions or tax increases, virtually everyone pays lip service to the notion of lowering our debt. The rub is no one agreeing on how to actually deal with the electorate's chronic refusal to sacrifice any benefits or give an ideological inch to the other side of the political spectrum.

A dyed-in-the-wool Republican, Mauldin would agree to almost anything, provided it leads to a debt reduction prior to the bond market lining America up and shooting it, as is already the case in Italy.

Given that political cooperation isn't in the cards, Mauldin says we "need to elect an either all Democrat or all Republican controlled operation" if we hope to make any progress towards a goal of sustainable prosperity.

Essentially we need something resembling fiscal dictatorship which forces us to actually live within our means as opposed to endlessly debating the manner in which we could do so. Mauldin doesn't want the debt to disappear overnight, merely a "glide-path" towards solvency by reducing our deficit by $150 - $200 billion per year.

Such a plan "puts us into a slow growth, higher unemployment economy, but we don't hit the wall," according to Mauldin.

The decision facing the U.S. is simple: Compromise or Die. The only question Mauldin has is which one it's going to be.