Republicans are pushing hard to pass President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” but it looks like the House of Representatives is going to have to agree to borrow even more money.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate version of the Big, Beautiful Bill will reduce federal revenues by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, while increasing spending by $1.2 trillion. That will increase the deficit by $3.3 trillion over the next 10 years, rather than by $2.8 trillion, as in the original House version. The extra $500 billion the Senate bill adds to the deficit comes from the fact that the Senate version cuts taxes more aggressively while cutting Medicare less aggressively.

Elon Musk, the former director of the Department of Government Efficiency, lambasted this out-of-control spending: “It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record five trillion dollars that we live in a one-party country—the Porky Pig Party!!” Yet President Trump dismissed his concerns, saying Musk is upset about losing his electric vehicle mandate rather than about the United States going bankrupt.

In May, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant recommended that the government prioritize economic growth above cost-cutting in an attempt to “grow our way out” of a debt crisis. Yet his math is dangerously off the mark.

These numbers are hard for the average person to fathom. For perspective, compare the government to an individual by slashing eight zeros from the official figures. This means the government is like a middle-class man earning $52,000 a year—yet spending $70,000 a year. This man, let’s call him Uncle Sam, put a staggering $18,000 on its credit card last year, even though he was already $370,000 in debt. He pays $10,000 a year in interest and is worried about high interest rates.

Since the U.S. gross domestic product is currently growing at a rate of 2.8 percent per year, Uncle Sam can probably count on a $1,500 pay raise each year. But an extra $1,500 per year doesn’t do much good when you are racking up $1,500 worth of new credit card debt each and every month. If Uncle Sam wants to grow his way out of debt, his income needs to be growing faster than his debt. The national debt is currently growing at a rate of about 5.4 percent per year, so Uncle Sam’s raises are only half as big as they need to be if he wants to start growing his way out of his ballooning debt.

The Tax Foundation estimates that Trump’s tax cuts could boost America’s annual gdp growth from 2.8 percent to 3.9 percent, yet that is a far cry from the 5.4 percent required to get Uncle Sam’s income growing faster than his debt. This means America’s debt-to-gdp ratio will keep increasing until Congress agrees to make the cuts necessary to get America’s spending under control. President Trump can criticize Musk all he wants, but Musk’s math was correct.

Musk wanted to trim $1 trillion from the budget. Keeping with our slash-eight-zeros analogy, these cuts would have reduced Uncle Sam’s new credit card debt from $18,000 to only $8,000. This means Uncle Sam’s debt would still be growing, but it would be growing only half as fast. This would enable Uncle Sam to grow his way out of his debt crisis as his debt-to-gdp ratio slowly decreased over time. Trump’s plan required a 6 percent growth rate that will not happen.

The Bible says, “The wicked borrows, and cannot pay back …” (Psalm 37:21; Revised Standard Version). It also says, “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children …” (Proverbs 13:22). This means America’s debt is not just unsustainable, it is sinful.

President Trump and the Republican Party have an amazing opportunity to slash wasteful spending from the government budget and put America on a path toward sustainability. But they are squandering their grandchildren’s inheritance for political expedience. Without drastic cuts, bankruptcy is only a generation away.

To learn more, read our Trends article “Why the Trumpet Watches America’s Economic Collapse.”