Ancient Israel is famous for not learning from its history. Over and over again the nation would commit the same sins, and consequently suffer the same punishment. Do we see the same thing happening in America today?

This month the Federal Housing Authority (fha) said it would no longer back mortgages for individuals with credit scores of less than 500. But don’t worry; if you have a score of 501, you won’t have a problem.

In case you are unfamiliar with credit scores, a rating of 500 is low—as in terribly, atrociously, horribly low—as in, how is it possible that you got such a low score?

That raises a question: What was the government thinking issuing these kind of loans for the past three years?

Does it make any sense risking taxpayer money on people who are virtually guaranteed to default on their mortgage? Why would the government help people purchase homes they cannot afford? If you have a score below 500, you have probably never made a single payment on time, and you have probably defaulted on loans multiple times.

It is as if the government never learned a single thing from the subprime mortgage meltdown that triggered Wall Street’s spectacular banking collapse, which resulted in the worst recession since the 1930s.

Apparently nothing has changed in Washington. As cnn brings out, the “practical impact of this move will be extremely limited.” And why is that? Because virtually no one has such a bad score.

What this means is that, as far as the government is concerned, anyone who wants a loan can still get one courtesy of taxpayers.

Where private banks stopped issuing subprime mortgages (because it almost bankrupted them), the government has jumped in with both feet. In fact, 95 percent of all mortgages issued in America are now guaranteed by the government. That means that if the homeowner defaults and he owes more on the mortgage than the house is worth, taxpayers pick up the tab.

Bad credit score? No down payment? No problem! The government has a loan program for you. Just ask the fha, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or the Department of Veteran Affairs. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture is getting in on the subprime action.

The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), for example, makes possible “zero down” mortgages as high as $1 million available to borrowers. By law, the VA offers most of its loans with no down payment required. It even subsidizes some loans to make possible 1 percent interest mortgages! And the average VA loan is over $200,000. Taxpayers, through this government program, now guarantee close to $300 billion worth of mortgages.

It is obvious that America hasn’t learned a thing from the mortgage meltdown. In 2008, it was the private banks that put the economy at risk. Now, instead of letting the bubble pop and the housing market reestablish at sustainable levels, the government is doing everything it can—including lending money to people who can’t afford it—to keep home prices artificially inflated.

This cannot end well.

Ancient Israel never learned its lesson: If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you are getting. Thus the cycle perpetuated: broken laws … removal of blessings … escalating curses … and eventually captivity. When things finally got bad enough, the nation would repent and cry out to God. God would have mercy and send a deliverer. But once things improved, Israel would soon forget God and return to paganism.

But at least Israel knew enough to ask God for deliverance. Things would have to get pretty bad—as in end of the present world—before America would do the same.

And so America’s problems will only intensify.

When the next housing downturn comes, will taxpayers even be able to borrow the money from foreigners to pick up the tab again? Or will the world cut off the world’s biggest subprime nation?