In some parallel universe, Congress and President Obama would respond to the stock market tumble, the S&P ratings downgrade, and growing public disgust at their toxic inaction on fiscal policy in a simple way: They’d agree on the broad deficit reduction plan they could not settle on last month. The plan would include some short-term stimulus to get the economy through its current rough patch and a mix of broad reforms in entitlements and the tax code that would reduce future projected spending and boost revenues.  Instead of sending reliably intransigent mouthpieces to sit on the fiscal super committee that was created by the debt limit agreement, the congressional leadership would use the panel as a mechanism to reach a sensible agreement. The odds of this happening remain, sadly, vanishingly small. The details of such an agreement are hardly a mystery. It would be, as Obama said in his remarks today, much like what was proposed by his own deficit commission (the one whose recommendations he ignored for months) and the Senate’s bipartisan gang of six. And it would be something like what he and House Speaker John Boehner could not agree on as part of their failed grand bargain. He might have added that it would also follow the blueprint proposed by the Bipartisan Policy Center. We have no shortage of budget frameworks-- all remarkably alike. Wall Street, for all of its whining about Washington, is hardly helping.  S&P’s downgrade, which did little more than mix conventional political analysis with appallingly bad math, may have embarrassed the rating agency as much as its blindness to last decade’s mortgage mess. In addition, the recent combination of plunging stocks and rising Treasury bond prices is no cry for deficit reduction. Indeed, it seems to be signaling greater fear of a double-dip recession than a government default. And don’t forget that Republicans refused to support a broad fiscal deal in part because of the pressure they felt from many hedge fund partners. Some of these heavy campaign contributors have been more interested in protecting their own tax breaks than in fixing nation’s fiscal problems. Still, the market’s ongoing nervousness would probably motivate Obama to come back to the table, if only he had someone to talk to.  He said today he felt a “renewed sense of  urgency” to confront the deficit. But it may take a few more days of Wall Street ugliness before he has anybody to negotiate with.