A lot of people were baffled to learn that the US government accepts and encourages donations to pay off the national debt of $36.7 trillion. But would that actually help?
This has been a thing for a while
Although the idea has been around for a while, people are just now realizing the United States’ Treasury Department is accepting donations through PayPal and Venmo to help pay off the country’s national debt, which currently stands at $36.7 trillion.
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The conversation started up again online
The reason people are talking about this again is because of NPR’s Jack Corbett who recently shared a screenshot on X showing the process of donating.
He explained, “You can Venmo the United States to help pay off the national debt.”
How the donating works
Corbett’s post left many people shocked as they didn’t know this system was even set up.
The way one would donate would be through the pay.gov website where donations can be made via credit card, debit card, PayPal, Venmo, checking account or savings account.
The online form states the whole thing
In the online form, it states, “Thank you for your contribution which will be deposited to the account ‘Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt’.”
“Your contribution is accepted under the provisions of 31 U.S.C. 3113 which authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to accept conditional gifts to the United States for the purpose of reducing the public debt.”
But does it actually help?
Considering that the national debt is a whooping $36.7 trillion, would a donation, even a sizable one, make much of a difference?
Well, according to Axios, not really. They explain that it would be ‘almost impossible’ for a donation to chip away at the national debt in a way that makes any difference.
The debt grows faster than it takes to donate
Even a generous donation wouldn’t make a dent in the national debt because, according to Axios, the debt is growing faster than you can make a donation.
The site, which trialed the donation process, said it took 80 seconds in total.
It would have to take 18 seconds
During those 80 seconds it would take to make a donation, the national debt would have reportedly increased by over $4 million, because of the fact that around $55,000 is added to it every second.
The donation would have to only take 18 seconds, at a maximum of $999,999.99 just to keep up with the rising debt.
People couldn’t believe it
Having learnt about the ability to donate to the US government, many on social media were baffled.
One person wrote, “I can’t believe this s**t is real. You can gift the US government money and assets to reduce the public debt. Public debt is such a lost cause, its going to infinity.”
Another person said, “Wow that’s crazy. Sad part is a lot of people will probably do it.”
