The U.S. federal government has run up a $1.4 trillion deficit in just the first nine months of Fiscal Year 2026, reported the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in its June 2026 “Monthly Budget Review.” The deficit has risen from $1.2 trillion in May, putting it on track to potentially reach $2 trillion by the end of September. That is just counting the deficit — the annual difference between revenue and expenditures — on top of a total federal government debt that now exceeds $39 trillion.

What are the impacts of this soaring deficit? Some in Washington prefer to believe that there are none, that Uncle Sam can spend his poor nephews’ pennies in perpetuity. Others are willing to act, but only once the deficit is shown to cause practical harm. Readers of this column may instinctually perceive that there are deeper principles of biblical wisdom and morality at play, but they would likely struggle to articulate them. This column is this author’s inexpert attempt to do just that.

One biblical principle is that those who contract debts should try to repay them. “The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives” (Psalm 37:21). Technically, the U.S. government has never failed to make good on its loan repayments. Uncle Sam borrows money from Peter and promises to pay him back on a certain date, and every time he does so. But Uncle Sam now pays back Peter by borrowing from Paul. Uncle Sam is not paying down his debt but merely shifting it from one creditor to another.

This becomes “a vicious cycle,” observed FRC President Tony Perkins, “because as the government borrows more money, they have to pay more interest on the debt.” Uncle Sam borrows $100 from Peter and promises to pay him back $105 on a certain date. That means Uncle Sam must borrow $105 from Paul in order to pay back Peter, eliciting a promise to pay Peter $110.25 at a future date. And so, the cycle continues. By merely shifting the debt around and never paying it off, the U.S. government is never able to get free from a burden of debt that only grows.

This aligns with a second principle, that debt is like a form of slavery. “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender” (Proverbs 22:7).

Readers may have noticed above the personification of the federal government as “Uncle Sam.” But is this really appropriate? After all, not everything that Scripture requires of individuals is expected of governments (e.g., turning the other cheek), nor can individuals do everything a government is authorized to do (e.g., bearing the sword). But when contracting a debt, the government acts more like an individual than as a sovereign — a needy supplicant forced to agree to unfavorable terms to meet a present emergency.

In any event, the regime inevitably passes on large financial burdens to its subjects in the form of taxation. Thus, we read, when Pharaoh Neco required tribute from Judah after the death of King Josiah, “Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco” (2 Kings 23:35). The biblical author does not exactly approve of this oppressive taxation from a ruler with independent wealth, but he does record that it happened.

Likewise, every dollar of debt assumed by the U.S. federal government must eventually be repaid by taxpayers — or never paid back at all. “When we start talking about hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars, it’s sometimes hard to get our arms around that, so I prefer to break this down to the per-family cost,” economist Joel Griffith, senior fellow at Advancing American Freedom, said on “Washington Watch.”

“Two trillion dollars in borrowed money for the federal government this year … means, for each and every family, that’s another $20,000 to your family share of that national debt,” Griffith calculated. That is not the total debt burden for each family, but the added debt burden from FY2026 alone. “We will likely be paying about $1.2 trillion in interest payments on the debt this year. That’s around $15,000 per family of four.” Interest payments on the debt have already risen 13% this year, to $857 billion over nine months, according to the CBO.

Beyond the direct cost of distributing federal debt among taxpayers, Griffith identified an indirect cost to consumers that results from federal deficit spending. When the “federal government borrows capital to run their daily operations, they’re competing with consumers and businesses for loans,” he said. “There are a number of estimates that suggest that interest rates today are close to 1% higher than they would be, were the government not borrowing such copious amounts of money. So, think about what that extra interest rate costs you when you’re looking to buy a house, or to purchase a vehicle.”

Prudence exhorts us to proceed cautiously when seeking to bring biblical wisdom to bear on this point. Griffith points out effects of a policy that are indirect, unintended, and not particularly obvious to the casual observer. Much of the Bible’s view of economic justice recoils at the horror of the powerful oppressing and mistreating their fellow image-bearers. For instance, Amos 5:11 proclaims, “Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them.” But the intensely personal force of such prophetic pronouncements seems out of place here.

Nevertheless, it is a biblical principle that leaders and those with power should consider how their actions affect those around them. In a lengthy oracle against Israel’s leaders, Ezekiel compares them to the strongest sheep in a flock. “Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet?” (Ezekiel 34:18-19).

When leaders make life difficult for the average person, even if only through carelessness and neglect, it is a form of injustice. And that injustice works to worsen economic conditions, further accentuating the helpless state of the poor. “The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice” (Proverbs 13:23).

Another biblical principle is that prudence and foresight enable the one who possesses them to escape disaster. “The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it” (Proverbs 22:3; 27:12). One might imagine a sailor who sees storm clouds approach, or an ancient traveler who ducks into a thicket while marauding raiders traipse past. A modern analogue would be the specter of rising interest rates — a threat to debt that few members of Congress seemed to heed.

“Part of the problem with the longer-term estimates that we saw just a few years ago, when we also were running large deficits, is that the Congress and even the White House advisers — and this goes for Republican and Democrat[ic] administrations — were projecting long-term interest rates on government debt being much lower,” Griffith explained. “In your personal budget, if you owe $100,000, and you’re estimating, you’re just going to pay a 2.5 or 3% interest rate going forward, it might make it appear as if you can shoulder that burden.” But, “when you take on a copious debt load, and then interest rates end up being much higher than you projected, that debt burden is much larger.”

Lastly, Griffith concluded, the problem facing the U.S. government is not that it does not collect enough taxes, but that it spends too much money. According to the CBO, federal government revenue has increased by $142 billion compared to last year, but spending has increased by $178 billion. The government is spending money faster than it can accumulate it.

In addition to rising interest payments, the other major contributor to rising costs is entitlement programs, Griffith said. “I’m in favor of DOGE. But the bottom line with that is it only reduced federal spending by around $5 billion. That’s out of a nearly $7-trillion-budget. It made virtually no impact on long-term government spending,” he began. “The difficult choices are the ones that politicians, whether Democrats or Republicans, are trying to kick down the road on entitlements.” According to the CBO, Social Security spending increased by $62 billion compared to the same period last year, Medicare costs rose by $58 billion, and Medicaid costs rose by $49 billion, in just the first nine months of this fiscal year.

“Even if we were to put in place a 100% wealth tax — which would be, of course, immoral, unconstitutional, and it’s not going to happen even if you were to do that — this would not resolve this rampant spending problem,” Griffith argued. “The way out of this is to allow our economy to grow.” Thus, he praised the Trump administration for regulatory reform and tax cuts but criticized its push for tariffs and its affinity for “partially nationalizing companies.”

Yet another biblical principle is relevant here: saving is wiser than expensive living. “One pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth” (Proverbs 13:7), Solomon observed. Even more pointedly, “Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man’s dwelling, but a foolish man devours it” (Proverbs 21:20).

By its continued support for unsustainable welfare programs, the U.S. government is pretending to be rich, when in fact it is digging itself — and the American people — deeper and deeper into the hole. The larder is empty. Foolish policies have devoured America’s “treasure and oil.” A course correction is inevitable, but it will involve hard, painful, and even unpopular choices clothed in humility. That humility — humility to admit our sorry financial plight — may not come until the economic pain of suffocating debt becomes acute and unmanageable.