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Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt
- austin-cheney 1y agoWhy? Until congress is willing to pass a balanced budget this is just lightning your own money on fire.
- A_D_E_P_T 1y agoIt's gotta be a joke. If they're serious, they should return to tradition and sell honors. Like "Patrician" status if you donate $5M or more, which comes with certain minor benefits. (Like you don't need to go through airport security, or you gain access to certain private clubs, etc.) Hereditary "Equestrian" if you donate $100M in cash. And so on. There wasn't a feudal monarchy around that wouldn't sell honors and titles if they were in dire enough straits, and a $37T debt is as dire as it gets. Of course, this is an extremely bad idea for obvious reasons (e.g. endemic corruption in our low-trust society, government donations as political signaling, etc.) and would also be something of a joke...
- tyleo 1y agoI’d appreciate if they sold title-only with no benefits. You can be called a patrician but don’t get the status, clubs, or security benefit. It feels poetic in a way, like the NFT version of an honors system.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoThat reminds me of this web cartoon: https://www.toonhoundstudios.com/comic/20220131/ https://www.toonhoundstudios.com/comic/20220131/
- treetalker 1y agoShould be tied to how close it takes one's net worth to zero and annual subsistence to the poverty line. Anything else would be more plutocracy.
- abcd_f 1y agoThe most coherent thing to do would be to give out a spray-painted "gold" memorial Trump medal, made in China. And then charge for shipping.
- g-mork 1y agoWouldn't be surprised if a creative tax accountant could find a use for it
- palmfacehn 1y agoIt isn't uncommon to come across a polemic opining for increased taxation. Frequently the rhetoric will fit a common pattern, "I'm a [insert high status or high income descriptor] and here's my spicy contrarian take: We should all be paying so much more!" While these people might still support the ideals of coercive taxation as a distinct issue, they might also pursue the voluntary route. If they truly value the government's services to the extent that they describe, it would seem like a win-win for them to volunteer their own wealth. The fact that they do not suggests that there is a low degree of confidence in government spending. The value received per dollar spent may be perceived as a poor return on investment. This often stands in direct contrast to the stated case for increased taxation. It speaks to the merits of the well known Economic Calculation Problem, which axiomatically explains why the state is unable to optimally allocate resources.
- austin-cheney 1y agoThis all sounds like bullshit posturing from politicians that got us into this mess. The bottom line is that government income must increase and government spending must decrease. Income can come from taxation, competing with private enterprise, donations, or other channels. Decreased spending ultimately means doing less. The only part of this that has become abundantly clear is that massively firing a bunch of people from government without a transition plan is incredibly expensive. If you want smaller government then expect government to do substantially less and the work force will decrease over time naturally. The small government political bullshit can seem to swallow that bitter pill.
- RhysU 1y agoIf one thinks that more government is the solution to all problems, a painfully common modern view, then the most utility available from $1 one owns is handing that $1 directly to the government. In practice, no one donates like this with their own money. They just vote for the government to take incremental money from others via ever more taxation.
- austin-cheney 1y agoIt doesn't matter where output comes from whether its government or the private sector. People expect some manner of output at a certain acceptable price and quality. But, this completely misses the point. The bottom line is government income must increase and government spending must decrease. That income can be from taxes, competing with commercial enterprise, donations, or whatever. It really doesn't matter. The only part of this that has been evidently clear is that massively firing people from the government without a plan has proven extremely expensive. If you really want smaller government you need a plan to reduce the work force over time in a way that does not diminish the quality and quantity of output.
- RhysU 1y agoMy point is that for someone who thinks government is the ultimate solution it's completely rational to have ever more government. More debt to finance more government simply follows. Can't have too much of a great thing. Etc.
- amy214 1y ago>In practice, no one donates like this with their own money. They just vote for the government to take incremental money from others via ever more taxation. In practice they throw piles of money at Trump - knowingly that it will lead to them saving an even larger money pile and thusly a net win. Trump, who then happily drives up debt. Taxing people more is so uncool, so let's go easy on the whole taxes thing, just have the money printer go brrrrr and let inflationary tax serve its purpose
- nabla9 1y agoOnly $29T is actual meaningful debt. $7.4T is intergovernmental holdings. It's just accounting where one part of the government owes to another. Best way to reduce debt/GDP ratio is just support politics and policies where debt grows slower than economy grows.
- AbstractH24 1y agoPhew, and I thought we were in trouble. Glad it's only $29T
- CoastalCoder 1y agoOr about 7x Nvidia's market cap.
- AbstractH24 1y agoSo the solution to all of America's problems is to nationalize Nvidia?
- CoastalCoder 1y agoYeah, just 7 times in rapid succession.
- bravesoul2 1y agoYou'd need to privatise an already national set of 7 Nvidii.
- AbstractH24 1y agoThe humor on HN on a Sat morning in the summer is fun. Now off to life in the real world.
- CoastalCoder 1y agoThere are narrow windows of time where the anti-humour down voters are distracted. It's all about timing.
- stevage 1y agoDoes anyone know if this is new?
- vitaliyf 1y agoIt is not: https://web.archive.org/web/20140906144611/https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/23779454/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140906144611/https://www.pay.g... there are records of it going back to 1990s: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/government/public-debt-reports/gifts/ https://www.treasurydirect.gov/government/public-debt-report...
- hypeatei 1y agoThey now accept Venmo and PayPal which is why it's showing up everywhere now but it has existed for a while.
- kobieps 1y agosurprised they don’t accept crypto
- primitivesuave 1y agoThere is a US Treasury API endpoint [1] to see how much money actually comes in. 1. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/gift-contributions-reduce-debt-held-by-public/gift-contributions-to-reduce-the-public-debt https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/gift-contributions-...
- echelon 1y agoWe need an API to block the government from spending more money. It seems like voting for "fiscal conservatives" results in bigger spending.
- 74B5 1y agoWhy should the we accept the continued downfall of public institutions, which is the ultimate consequence of austerity? The public infratructure shrinks, while the rich get richer, partially from paid bond interesets. And you would just sit there and think, "yea, thats the way"? Do you really think spending and not taxation is the problem? Eg. spending less on education leads to less gullable people, voting for harmful demagogues, so you finally get the "financial conervatives" you want?
- arealaccount 1y agoWhy not both?
- lotsofpulp 1y ago>Why should the we accept the continued downfall of public institutions A government spending less money does not equate to spending less money on public institutions. It can even mean spending more money on public institutions, assuming less money is spent on other things, such as unproductive wealth transfers.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago> as unproductive wealth transfers. Do you mean progressive taxation here, or something else?
- cyberlimerence 1y agoTrickle up economics, what a joke.
- echelon 1y agoI kind of want to donate $0.01, but I think that'll either get me on a list or will have some kind of bug that drains my account. edit: the minimum the form accepts is $5
- codingrightnow 1y agoI tried to donate -$15. It didn't complain about it being a negative number, just that it was lower than the minimum.
- velebak 1y agoSo, extra tax then? Voluntary?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jmclnx 1y agoWhen will the US have telethons ? IIRC, there was movie about that in the 70s.
- DataDaemon 1y agoI donate to Treasury and collect 4% interests rate
- bravesoul2 1y agoWhich is still an altruistic thing to do as it will cost you value in real terms. Thank you for your service to the rich.
- kubb 1y agoWhen you think of the government being owned by the rich, this is one of the ways in which that happens.
- K0balt 1y agoThey should monetize that kompromat with an onlyfans.
- OrvalWintermute 1y agoSeeing how money is spent with: Medicare Medicaid Social Security Foreign Aid Section 8 Foodstamps WIC And many others Would suggest not paying down the debt while Congress is still spending like a drunken sailor in a red light district. This is not even addressing the >200 Trillion entitlements issue
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bluemanshoe2 1y agoUsing the API, the total contributions people have made here for all time are $67,323,122.88. Meanwhile, the Debt-to-the-penny api (https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/d...) tells us that (as of 2025-07-25) the public debt is $29,361,169,407,599.91 whereas the day before it was $29,332,905,580,399.32, meaning the one day increase was $28,263,827,200.59. So, the publics total contributions amount to 0.24% of the increase from Thursday to Friday last week. One part in 400 of the one day change, or about ~3 minutes worth.
- justsomehnguy 1y agoYes, the whole idea is... Also reminds me of an old anecdote: "How much time it takes for Bill Gates to make a million dollars? Not doing anything for a minute." BG could be replaced with anyone from TOP500[0] nowadays, I suppose. https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/ https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/
- beej71 1y agoI've always wondered why rich people would donate to the debt for exactly this reason. What's their angle?
- piva00 1y agoPanhandling at the governmental level? I didn't expect seeing that from the wealthiest country in the history of Earth...