It’s hard for me to write anything negative about Thomas Jefferson, I love him so much and admire him for what he has given us. Jefferson taught others not to spend your money before you have it, to save and be frugal. Yet he didn’t seem to listen to his own advice in that regard.

But he did warn the government against debt and overspending. And his presidential administration was done with such business like efforts, he cut the federal debt and lowered taxes.

And to be sure, here’s what he said about government spending: “I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution; I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of the Constitution; I mean an additional article taking from the government the power of borrowing.

“It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of it faculties, ‘never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principal within a given term.” (Letter from Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, June 24, 1813, as quoted in “America in the Last Days” by Morris Harmor, 2017, page 174.)