Fortune magazine senior editor-at-large Allan Sloan has had enough. He has seen a lot in 40 years of writing about economic matters, but this summer he found himself “watching with increasing horror as market-illiterate know-nothings, abetted by the craven leaders of the Republican Party (from which I’m about to resign) and the unspeakable ineptness of Obama and his minions, brought our country to within an inch of defaulting on its debts.”

He definitely seems to be upset.

His central point is that we don’t know what we’re doing, but note that he’s not taking sides. Sloan is fed up with our national leaders in general.

“The root of our current problem is that there are no grownups in positions of serious power in Washington,” Sloan writes in a column for the Sept. 6 issue of Fortune. “I’ve never felt this way before.”

With the American stock market hanging on a bungee cord and ever-worsening news from Europe, the next 15 months are shaping up to be an enervating experience. It will be a season of attacks in the political arena, and the nastiness will contaminate everything else.

For now, we’re waiting to hear President Barack Obama’s economic plan, wondering why we have to wait and also wondering whether anyone is going to do anything about the previous economic plans. Bowles-Simpson, we hardly knew ye.

As others have done, Sloan calls for cutting tax rates but broadening the tax base by drastically reducing itemized deductions. Then he would “modify Social Security and Medicare formulas, imposing higher costs on higher-end retirees.”

Done right, that would allow everyone in the fray to claim victory. More important, it would get the country closer to back on track.

It seems reasonable, practical – and almost inevitable.

“Yes, rationality is out of style, and fanaticism is the new normal,” Sloan writes. “But do we really want a national life like the one we’ve had the past few years? All shrieking and no thinking?”

No, we don’t.