There's an old saying: When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. That's a lesson that the United States government seems incapable of absorbing. Our national debt is ballooning out of control, and Congress keeps kiting checks and spending money on all manner of ridiculous things. This is hardly a new thing. There is an apocryphal story about Ronald Reagan when he was president that goes like this: someone commented in The Gipper's presence that Congress was "spending like drunken sailors"; Reagan objected, pointing out correctly that drunken sailors were spending their own money. 

Federal spending in the United States originates in the House of Representatives, and the appropriations bills that drive spending originate in the House Appropriations Committee. This week, House Republicans are expected to elect a new chair of the powerful committee:

The House Republican Steering Committee is set to consider a new chair for the panel upon the lower chamber’s return from recess Tuesday, just weeks after Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) said she would be stepping down as chair. 

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), head of the subcommittee that crafts funding for transportation and housing programs, is seen as an early favorite for the coveted seat and has already been looking at some of the changes he hopes to see if elected in the coming days. That includes getting Congress to finish its annual funding work on time this year.

“No. 1 thing is to get the work done and put the leadership in a position to make the decisions that they want to make,” Cole said in a Monday interview. 

What the number one thing needs to be is to get spending under some semblance of control. For the last few decades, runaway spending has been the norm no matter which party holds the checkbook, and it's not just the federal government that's gone off the rails.

See Related: Bloomberg Simulations Show US National Debt on 'Unsustainable Path' 

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There are still a few fiscal hawks in Congress. In the Senate, Rand Paul (R-KY) comes to mind. In the House, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) is voicing some concerns with how the system is working.

“In my years of service on the Committee, I never once voted against my own bill while Republicans held the Majority — until this year,” (Rep. Robert) Aderholt (chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding for departments of Health and Human Services and Labor) wrote Tuesday.

“This may seem trivial to some, but here’s why it should matter to everyone: if the leader of one of the largest subcommittees in Congress cannot recognize the bill he is voting on from the one his subcommittee approved, what hope is there for his colleagues, let alone the American public?”

The American public can't, and that's a big part of the problem. In March, President Biden signed stopgap measures to avoid a government shutdown; that bill authorized the spending of $1.2 trillion. That's $1,200,000,000,000. Some of that money comes from taxes - confiscated from American citizens, taken with the implied threat of force (as I keep saying, if you don't believe that, stop paying your taxes and see how long it takes the government to send men with guns out looking for you). Some of it comes from increasing our out-of-control debt. And some of it, frankly, is fiat money created out of thin air.

We are on an unsustainable fiscal path. If there is one thing that would be great to hear from an incoming House Appropriations chief, it would be, "We're going to cut spending - no, not lowering the rate of increase, but spending less money. It's time to get serious about our spending problems."

That would be great to hear. I won't hold my breath.