The following article does not necessarily express the views of The Plain Truth. We are sharing other opinions and will sometimes offer a commentary on anything we may disagree with.
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.