We have to talk about that thing again — you know, that thing everybody else squinches their eyes shut and plugs their ears and says, "NANANANANA-I-CAN'T-HEAR-YOU," whenever it comes up.
But first, let's talk about an awesome movie. I swear I can tie all this together.
Director-screenwriter Quentin Tarantino revealed his Top 10 picks for the best movies of the 21st Century — "So far," I presume — and there's an unexpected gem in the number six spot. It's Tony Scott's 2010 runaway train thriller, Unstoppable.
Starring Denzel Washington (cool since forever) and Chris Pine (hot off his turn as Captain James T-M-F Kirk in the Star Trek reboot), it's the true story about a half-mile-long train filled with dangerous chemicals and nobody at the throttle. Unstoppable had a respectable $100 million budget, solid marketing... and yet hardly anybody saw it on the big screen. After marketing costs, and Denzel's presumed backend goodies, the film might not have made enough money for two tickets and a bucket of popcorn.
A runaway train packed with toxic chemicals barreling toward catastrophe? I know a metaphor when I see one, but this train will circle back to that in just a sec.
So how did Unstoppable make Tarantino's top ten? Simple: It's damn-near perfect filmmaking. Start with a simple premise — perfectly encapsulated in the tagline, "1 million tons of steel. 100,000 lives at stake. 100 minutes to impact." — and shoot it with Scott's signature swagger and plenty of star-powered charisma.
I have a tagline for a modern political thriller also based on a true story: "38 trillion dollars. 340 million lives at stake. Zero effs given."
It's been about four months since the last time we discussed the nation's runaway deficits — Houston, We Have a Spending Problem — when I reminded you that "every time I write about Washington's addiction to spending and debt — which codependent voters fully enable — I probably lose readers."
Yet I persist.
And I must, because it's been a brutal stretch, with nearly $2 trillion in additional debt held by the public since then.
Public debt has grown by about $2 trillion in less than 6 months.
— Jack Salmon (@_JackSalmon_) December 3, 2025
It will surpass $31 trillion before the end of the year. pic.twitter.com/tOIbRRkvLT
When we last spoke of this, the total debt stood at a little over $37 trillion. As I type this sentence, it stands at $38,432,919,929,318. And climbing by six figures every two or three seconds.
Welcome to our broken budgeting process, defined by the Three C's: Complacency, Cowardice, and Continuing Resolutions.
Washington, you have a problem. We all do.
The complacency is on us, the voters, who vote as though the gravy train will never derail — when in fact, it's speeding out of control with nobody at the throttle. The cowards are in Congress, only a handful of whom have the guts to tell the truth about our addiction to spending and their codependency. Or maybe it's the other way around. Or both!
Continuing resolutions are a veil the cowards hide behind to avoid the inevitable.
And Another Thing: Unstoppable is a lot like Ron Howard's Apollo 13 in its popcorn perfection. "Oh, so you know how it ends?" Howard might as well have said. "Big deal, I'll rip your heart out every time you watch it. Which will be often." My wife and I watch both movies every year or two, and we're thrilled every time.
During the first two years of Presidentish Joe Biden's term, Democrats opened up the spending throttle like never before. They spent trillions like mere billions, until the voters gave Congress back to the GOP in 2022. It's the same trick Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid played in 2009-11 — rack up the spending while they could.
And so what? The Democrats are happy to throw away their majority from time to time, so long as they throttle up the gravy train when they are in control. The Three C's lock in their gains.
Just like Unstoppable, we know how this ends — badly, without a Denzel and Pine to save the day.
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