Do any presidential candidates offer hope of fiscal sanity? Let’s see what the Republicans are saying.

The key takeaway: Congress is increasingly abusing emergency designations to evade spending limits. With Congress still considering $110 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine and Israel, it is high time we recognize the fiscal and national security consequences of unpaid‐​for emergency spending.

Cutting federal aid to the states would reduce our national debt while improving governance.

The federal government’s design of the DSH program is outdated and leaves ample room for fraud. To alleviate this, the federal government should recalculate state‐level DSH allocations, limit states’ usage of abusive hospital/provider taxes, and crack down on existing hospital/provider tax loopholes.

Ethiopia is experiencing a humanitarian crisis as a result of civil war and drought. Foreign food aid seems justified, but food aid to Ethiopia has been severely mismanaged.

A massive Australian energy project is an exemplar of runaway costs. The budget of the Snowy 2.0 power dam and energy storage project has exploded from $2 billion in 2017 to $12 billion today. The project is a reminder that taxpayers should be skeptical when governments propose large and complex construction schemes.

With a 2023 deficit of $2 trillion and the Treasury needing to roll over about one‐third of publicly held debt at now much higher interest rates within one year, legislators are beginning to more seriously grapple with the fiscal and economic costs of unsustainable government debt. Among the most promising options: empowering a fiscal commission to overcome the political gridlock plaguing Congress.

The Biden administration is requesting another federal agency‐​sized supplemental. This time, it’s $56 billion in new emergency spending for natural disasters, childcare, and high‐​speed internet. With deficits in the trillions and interest rates at historic highs, Congress should stop adding fuel to the deficit fire.