McCarthy finally put on his big boy pants and is proposing a 45 day clean spending bill

While I was definitely a proponent of this, I will easily admit that I was a bit surprised that he actually did it. There are far too many "non-starters" for both parties right now, and it seems to be getting worse not better. Even identifying as a moderate or centrist is pretty well derided at every turn. It is a bit crazy, but the most heated arguments I get into are with people that I agree 80% or more with.

and then their constituents buy into the “fiscal conservatism” ploy

I am sure that the fiscally conservative Republicans are just as frustrated by this issue as you and I are. Over and over we hear the talk and then they come back with even more spending and less taxes, which is definitely the opposite of what is needed. The problem I see, is that I can't even remember the last time I heard a Democrat in office pushing for a balanced budget. I am not sure what is worse, not mentioning it or talking about it then doing the opposite; probably the latter but clearly not everyone agrees.

The worst thing in all this, is that we have some how taken on all this excess debt during during a virtual golden age. It is a bit scary to think about what the future would look like if we had a long-term recession.

No one is willing to take on our defense spending issues

I fully agree that this is an issue, and with most of your related points, but I really don't have any kind of a solution for it. The idea of creating or propping up an additional military company indefinitely frustrates me even when just thinking about it.

I keep teetering on an isolationist bent, where we would pull back from a lot of our military bases and make it clear that some old commitments are about to be updated, but I think it is pretty clear that some of our world adversaries would take that as a sign of weakness and start pushing their boundaries immediately.

I think it is time that some of our allies that rely on our military take on some of their own responsibility, but most of them are nowhere near ready. Also, I am pretty sure it will just create more world level chaos and likely lead to a new great war.

I think we likely have gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle. Doubly so, since we are having such a cultural and political division issue at home. When its nearly impossible to handle simple issues, deeply complex issues like these are almost laughable, in the Joaquin Phoenix as Joker kind of way.