More Than $3 Million Was Donated To Help Pay Down The Debt In Last Fiscal Year

Are you exasperated by the size of the US national debt load and want to do something about it? Do you want to go above and beyond and contribute some of your hard-earned savings towards helping to pay down the debt?

If so, you are not alone.

First off, the US government will GLADLY accept any and all donations. 31 U.S.C. 3113 "authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to accept conditional gifts to the United States for the purpose of reducing the public debt."

The government has made it even easier to give the gift of debt repayment in recent years by creating a "special" web site that US citizens can use to "make donations to help reduce the public debt". You can pay with your checking account or credit card. The site, called pay.gov, can be found here.

Or, if you aren't comfortable giving your credit card information to the government (lol), you can contribute the "old school" way by writing a check, payable to the "Bureau of the Public Debt". Just don't forget to include in the memo section that the check is "a Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public".

Believe it or not, there are actually people out there who have made donations to the federal government to help pay down the debt.

As a matter of fact, according to the Reuters.com article linked below, Treasury spokesman Kim Treat said that people donated "a little over $3 million" in the last fiscal year, the highest such total since "at least 1996".

So, if you are still feeling a little empty after paying off your taxes and want to do something a little extra for the government, don't worry, as they have made it very easy for you to fork over more of your savings.

The good news is that Americans contributed over $3 million towards paying down the debt last year.

The bad news is that the country owes nearly $13 trillion (and counting). This works out to a total debt burden of $42,369 for every man, woman and child in the country.

If every man, woman and child wrote a check for $40,000 tomorrow to the US government, then the country would still owe about $750 billion.

If US citizens continued to contribute $3 million towards the national debt every year, then it would only take roughly 4.3 million years to pay off the debt.

Of course, that's with zero interest.

The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) estimates that the nation will spend $207 billion on net interest spending in 2010, and nearly $725 billion on net interest spending in 2020.

So, assuming that Americans decided to contribute another $3 million in donations during the 2010 fiscal year, this amount would help to pay about 1/69,000th of the interest payable by the US government in 2010.

If you really feel that it is your patriotic duty to smash open your piggy bank and made a donation to help pay down the debt - I won't stop you, and neither will the US government.

Source: Reuters.com - Worried about U.S. Debt? Send Your Donation Here

Filed under: General Knowledge