For decades, politicians in Washington have paid lip service to “fiscal responsibility” as they practice fiscal irresponsibility on a scale unprecedented in American history.

Jim Cardoza | May 28, 2026

For decades, politicians in Washington have paid lip service to “fiscal responsibility” as they practice fiscal irresponsibility on a scale unprecedented in American history. The national debt of the United States has now climbed beyond $35 trillion, a number so large that it has ceased to register emotionally with most citizens. Yet numbers do not lose their consequences simply because they become difficult to imagine. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion dollars. Thirty-five trillion dollars represents obligations so enormous that future generations may spend much of their lives paying for promises made long before they were old enough to vote.

What is particularly remarkable is not merely the size of the debt, but the normalization of it. Politicians announce deficits in the hundreds of billions as casually as a family discusses grocery expenses. News reports treat another trillion added to the debt as routine political weather. Meanwhile, the same people who lecture ordinary Americans about budgeting, sustainability, and sacrifice routinely spend money the government does not possess.

No household can survive indefinitely by spending more than it earns. No business can remain solvent by perpetually borrowing to finance daily operations. Yet somehow, we are expected to believe that the federal government alone has discovered a magical exemption from economic reality. It has not.

The laws of economics do not disappear because politicians vote against them.

For years, America enjoyed advantages that concealed the danger. The U.S. dollar served as the world’s reserve currency. Foreign governments eagerly purchased Treasury bonds. Interest rates remained relatively low. These conditions allowed Washington to postpone consequences that would have arrived swiftly in less fortunate nations. But postponing consequences is not the same thing as eliminating them.

Already, interest payments on the national debt consume staggering amounts of federal revenue. The government is increasingly borrowing money merely to pay interest on money already borrowed. That is not financial management. It is the fiscal equivalent of using one credit card to pay another. Families attempting such a strategy are usually described as headed toward bankruptcy. Governments use softer language — ”stimulus,” “continuing resolutions,” or “necessary investments” — but arithmetic remains unmoved by rhetoric.

Massive debt crowds out productive investment. As government borrowing expands, capital that might otherwise finance businesses, innovation, factories, or job creation instead finances political promises. Economic growth slows. Wages stagnate. Productivity suffers.

Inflation becomes another danger. Governments deeply addicted to debt often discover that devaluing currency becomes politically easier than controlling spending. Inflation is particularly cruel because it operates as a hidden tax. It punishes savers, retirees, and working people whose wages fail to keep pace with rising prices. The wealthy often possess assets that rise with inflation. Ordinary citizens watch groceries, gasoline, insurance, and housing consume larger portions of shrinking paychecks.

There is also the matter of national security. A heavily indebted nation becomes vulnerable. Dependence on foreign creditors constrains policy choices. Economic weakness invites geopolitical weakness. History is filled with great powers undone not merely by military enemies but by internal fiscal decay.

Rome debased its currency. Britain declined under mounting financial strain after two world wars. Numerous modern nations — from Argentina to Greece — have learned that debt crises arrive gradually, then suddenly.

Yet perhaps the most destructive consequence is moral rather than economic.

When politicians spend money they do not have, they are effectively voting to obligate people not yet born. Future taxpayers inherit liabilities without consent. One generation enjoys benefits while another gets the bill. Such conduct would be considered irresponsible within a family. In government, it is often celebrated as compassion.

The central problem is incentives.

Members of Congress face incentives to spend, not to save. Government programs create constituencies. Spending purchases votes, headlines, influence, and campaign contributions. Fiscal restraint, by contrast, creates enemies. Every dollar cut has a visible loser. Every dollar borrowed postpones pain until after the next election cycle.

In other words, Congress behaves rationally according to the incentives it faces.

That reality suggests a solution far simpler than the thousands of pages of budget gimmicks and bipartisan commissions produced over the years.

Congress should not be paid if it spends more money than the federal government collected in revenue during the previous fiscal year.

The principle is straightforward. If Congress approves expenditures exceeding prior-year revenues, salaries for members of Congress are automatically suspended until a balanced budget is restored. No exceptions. No accounting tricks. No “emergency” loopholes broad enough to drive entire spending bills through. If lawmakers insist on spending beyond available revenue, they must do so without compensation.

Suddenly, incentives would change.

The people deciding whether to overspend would personally experience consequences from overspending. Remarkably, this is the same standard applied daily to ordinary Americans.

A contractor who fails to manage costs does not receive a bonus for exceeding the budget. A worker who continually overspends household income eventually confronts unpaid bills. Yet Washington operates under precisely the opposite logic. Politicians spend recklessly and continue collecting salaries, pensions, speaking fees, and media contracts.

Imagine if every congressional debate over spending included immediate personal stakes. Imagine if legislators knew that another trillion-dollar deficit meant their own paychecks disappeared. One suspects budget negotiations would become serious rather quickly.

Critics would object that congressional salaries are relatively small compared to the federal budget. That misses the point entirely.

The issue is not whether suspending congressional pay alone would erase the deficit. The issue is whether incentives influence behavior. They do. They always do.

James Madison once observed that to preserve liberty, government must be bound by chains of constitutional restraint because men are not angels. Yet modern government increasingly operates on the assumption that politicians, unlike ordinary citizens, can be trusted with limitless financial discretion.

Experience suggests otherwise.

Others would argue that emergencies require deficit spending. Certainly, there are moments — major wars, catastrophic attacks, national crises — where extraordinary expenditures become unavoidable. But Washington long ago ceased treating deficits as emergencies. Deficits have become the default operating condition of government under both political parties.

Temporary emergency measures became permanent habits.

Moreover, the proposal would produce something almost extinct in Washington: accountability. Politicians frequently campaign against debt while voting for spending once elected. Under this system, rhetoric would become expensive. Promises would carry consequences.

Most importantly, such a reform would restore a forgotten principle: government officials should bear responsibility for the results of their decisions.

Today, Congress socializes costs while privatizing benefits. Politicians gain electoral advantages from spending while taxpayers absorb the burden. That imbalance explains much of modern fiscal irresponsibility.

A Congress forbidden to pay itself while overspending would finally encounter the same reality faced by every American family: resources are finite.

The national debt is not merely an accounting issue. It is a warning sign of a political system increasingly detached from restraint, discipline, and consequences. Nations rarely collapse overnight. More often, they slowly normalize behavior that would once have seemed unthinkable — until arithmetic finally reasserts itself.

America cannot borrow indefinitely against the future while pretending prosperity requires no sacrifice. Eventually, reality presents the bill.

The question is whether we will restore fiscal discipline voluntarily or have it imposed upon us by economic crisis.

Jim Cardoza is the author of The Moral Superiority of Liberty and the founder of LibertyPen.com. Read more of his essays