Have you heard the news? Reports today confirm that the national debt has been paid in full! Yes, you read that correctly. The national debt has been completely erased with a zero balance. The United States doesn’t owe a penny.
No, this isn’t an early April Fool’s joke nor am I lying. Unfortunately, this isn’t today’s news. If we were alive on this day in 1835, though, that would have been the headlines of the daily newspaper. It took 58 years, 6 months, and 5 days for the United States to accomplish this. As of today’s date, the United States has been in existence 90,403 days or 247 years, 6 months, and 5 days. And we have only been debt free for less than one of those years.
Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of our nation. He served from 1829-1837. Prior to his presidency, he had taken a financial hit from a bad land investment. This left him with massive debt, bank notes that weren’t worth the paper on which they were printed, and a jaded hatred for national banks. To him, banks and lending institutions were the scourge of the earth. Debt was a personal and national enemy that needed to be destroyed – a national curse.
“For Andrew Jackson, politics was very personal,” says H.W. Brands, an Andrew Jackson biographer at the University of Texas. “He hated not just the federal debt. He hated debt at all.” In Jackson’s mind, debt was “a moral failing,” Brands says. “And the idea you could somehow acquire stuff through debt almost seemed like black magic.”1
To accomplish his goal, Jackson began selling off land and blocking or vetoing any spending bill that arose in Congress. Before you knew it, $58.4 million in debt disappeared. It’s the only time this has ever happened, and it didn’t last. When he left office, the debt was $336,957.83. That doesn’t seem like much when our current debt is nearly $31 trillion.
Trivia question: which president left office with the largest percentage of debt increase during their term? The answer shocked me. It was President Lincoln. The national debt increased 2859.40% under his administration.2
Debt isn’t inherently wrong according to Scripture. However, some truths must be considered. Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” So long as a debt is hanging over your head, you do not have freedom with that money. It is to be spent to pay what is owed. Therefore, the lender has control of a portion of your life, maybe more depending on the amount of the debt.
The Jews were commanded not to be borrowers of other nations. They were told in Deuteronomy 15:6, “For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.” It would seem that the Jews could borrow from each other. However, they were not to go into the world and ask for help. And they were not supposed to charge each other interest.
Other Biblical principles for debt can be summed up this way:
If at all possible, don’t get into debt.
If you must – like for a house or car – don’t create debt that you cannot repay.
Pay off the debt as quickly as possible.
Learn to be content with such things as you have. Too often, debt is created out of want, not out of need. That’s the American way, right? But it can’t be the Christian way.
If you have debt, make this a year where you will double your efforts to pay it off or pay it down quicker than anticipated. Financial freedom can be ours in this new year.
1https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/04/15/135423586/when-the-u-s-paid-off-the-entire-national-debt-and-why-it-didnt-last
2https://www.self.inc/info/us-debt-by-president/#history
