Venmo the Treasury to help pay Uncle Sam's debt? You can, if you really want
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Of all the things you might use Venmo for — buying drinks, splitting a check with friends, repaying a loan — there's a good chance you've never had "sending the government a gift to help pay the public debt" on your list.
- But you can, if you really, really want.
The big picture: Axios' calculations suggest it'd be almost impossible for your personal donation to actually make a hole in the debt, even if you were feeling really generous.
Driving the news: A post on X from NPR's Jack Corbett went viral Wednesday night, sharing a screenshot of the Treasury Department's "Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt" page.
- Treasury's operated the little-known program for decades, letting people send gifts by bank transfer, credit card, PayPal or Venmo to help the government pay down its $36.7 trillion in debt.
- Per Treasury data, people have donated $67.3 million since late 1996, about 20 minutes' worth of debt.
Yes, but: The debt is huge, and grows quickly — just under $55,000 a second.
How it works: Axios ran an informal trial Venmo payment on the debt gift site, going all the way through the process except for the final "submit" click.
- It clocked in at 1 minute, 20 seconds, during which time the national debt would have increased about $4.4 million.
- As the Venmo form caps donations at $999,999.99, that means any gift a user gives wouldn't be sufficient to cover the increase in the debt incurred while they were donating.
- In fact, you'd have to make that maximum donation in 18 seconds or less just to keep up with the debt.
The intrigue: To actually cover the debt at current levels, every single person in the United States, from the newest-born baby on up, would have to donate roughly $100,000 each.
The bottom line: As with many things in life, just because you can, doesn't necessarily mean you should.
