President Trump and a Unique Moment in Time
Reckless spending is immoral. Is it not? You could compare it to the sins of gluttony and sloth. We must produce more than we consume to stay ahead and, conversely, often consume less to avoid unnecessary debt. Wasteful spending is also wrong because it leads to not caring for our families in the long run.
Whoever does not provide for his family, especially those of their own household, denies the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8)
Those are direct, strong biblical words! We may need to borrow money to care for our family in an emergency, but isn’t making an ongoing habit of it immoral?
Do good parents leave their children with enormous debt if they have a choice about it? Of course not. So why are we leaving our children with a massive national debt?
Before the Progressive Era Took Control
For more than two-thirds of the time between 1790 and 1930, the federal government ran budget surpluses. That’s hard to believe, given what we’re now used to from our politicians. But from our country’s founding forward, there was a surplus in most years.
The economy slowed during recessions, tax receipts dropped, and sometimes there was a small shortfall. However, the budget always approximated balance, except during major wars. After the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War I, the national debt ran up to just over 30% of the size of our annual economy. In other words, Congress and the president ensured that the budget approximated balance except during big wars because taxation and spending were a sacred trust with the citizens.
An article from the CATO Institute affirms this while giving a history of the national debt as a moral question. The authors note that the “bipartisan belief that balancing the federal budget was morally proper and economically prudent disappeared after the 1930s.”
Honestly, 1931 was the first year the government began trying to drive the economy by running massive deficits under progressive Republican President Herbert Hoover. It didn’t work. The country fell further into the Great Depression. President Franklin Roosevelt doubled down and increased government spending, borrowing, and taxation, but those efforts never produced a healthy economy. Unemployment remained in the double digits through the 1930s.
From 1931 until today, the “progressive” idea that we can create a better society and drive the economy from deficit spending has driven the national debt to higher than it’s ever been without a major war (after World War II, it reached a level similar to today’s). It’s now at about 120% of the size of our annual economy. And this amount is growing daily.
Since Fiscal Year 2025 began on November 1, “The U.S. government has spent $2.44 trillion in fiscal year 2025 to ensure the well-being of the people of the United States.” (See for yourself here.)
Note that last phrase taken from a United States Treasury website: “to ensure the well-being of the people of the United States.” Deficit spending for our wellbeing? This sums up the mindset of the bureaucrats who’ve been minding the store all these decades pretty succinctly.
What about the well-being of our children and grandchildren? The Preamble to the Constitution ends this way: “…and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Notice that the words “Blessings,” “Liberty,” and “Posterity” are capitalized? To secure our, and our children’s, God-given freedom, we must be responsible and moral and recognize eternal truths in basic economic principles.
A High School Lesson Regarding Politicians
Justifying bad ideas in economics and politics to win elections and hold power also is immoral; it hurts people. Many years ago, a high school teacher of mine gave us much information designed to burst our bubble about American politics. I remember often thinking, over the semester, that he was cynical.
He asked us a question at the end of the term, and if we answered it correctly, it meant we understood the whole point of the course: What defines a successful politician? (The correct answer was: one who continues winning elections.)
At the risk of being more cynical than my teacher, I must add “and enriching himself in the process.” Now we’ve got a fuller definition!
A Unique Moment in Time
We now have something strangely different from our typical politicians: a pair of billionaire disruptors leading the charge toward responsible government spending.
Donald Trump lost money from his political aspirations (according to him) and during his first term, gave his presidential salary to charity. And he’s continuing this practice in his second term — even after all the Deep State has done to block, cancel, and even kill him? He certainly is different!
Elon Musk is different, too. Like the kid on the football team who’s faster than everyone else, he pulls ahead of all the other entrepreneurs, accelerating toward the goal line in each venture he attempts. The fastest kid makes everyone on the team quicker as they try to catch him!
Musk made electric cars that are faster than traditional ones with internal combustion engines, mass-produced them, and made them affordable. Now, the big car companies are chasing his products. He made cost-effective, reusable rockets that land on a tower; made portable satellite service cost-effective with Starlink; and exposed political corruption among tech oligarchs and returned free speech to the people by buying Twitter. Now that he’s working with Trump, watch affordable internet expand nationwide into rural areas with Starlink. We may even get to Mars sometime soon!
Two entrepreneurs with no political experience (of course, Trump now knows how things work in government after his first term) striving to cut waste and improve government efficiency is refreshing. Neither of them is in it for the money. If it had been written a few years ago, it would make a great movie plot — but no one would believe it was possible.
But it’s happening before our eyes, and the Democrats are going haywire, as some would say — making fools of themselves to stop responsible spending. They’re holding on to the “Progressive” paradigm of spreading printed and borrowed money around as somehow, they become very wealthy on their relatively modest government salaries.
Pray for success in this struggle for a balanced budget. What we need are the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our Posterity!
James Malloy is the author of Economic Clarity or Political Confusion: The Classical Cure for Keynesian Debt & Deficits. He has a bachelor’s degree in business economics and has been an active licensed California mortgage and real estate broker for 20 years. Contact him at econclarity.com.