Leadership Quote by John Ensign

“Out of control” is the oldest trick in the fiscal alarmist playbook, and Ensign uses it here with the efficiency of someone who knows the phrase does the work so he doesn’t have to. The Appropriations Committee isn’t a rogue biker gang; it’s where Congress does the unglamorous job of turning priorities into line items. Calling it “out of control” reframes that constitutional process as a kind of runaway machine - spending as accident, not choice - and turns legislators into either responsible adults or reckless enablers.

The repetition (“out of control, out of control”) isn’t accidental. It’s a rhythmic doubling meant for cameras and clipping services, a way to manufacture urgency and moral clarity without naming a single program. That vagueness is the point: it allows listeners to project their own grievances onto the target, while shielding the speaker from the messy politics of specifying what should be cut (and who should absorb the pain).

Context matters because appropriations fights are rarely about “spending” in the abstract; they’re about power. Committees guard pork, leadership guards leverage, and senators guard the home-state benefits they denounce in Washington and defend back home. Ensign’s line signals membership in the party-of-restraint brand, but also functions as an intra-Congress shot: a committee is an easier villain than constituents, contractors, or popular entitlements.

The subtext is a bid for credibility through indignation - fiscal discipline as identity - while keeping room to negotiate later. “Out of control” is less a diagnosis than a positioning statement.