The U.S Treasury Department wants you to Venmo it to help with the $36.65 trillion national debt.
On Wednesday, NPR’s Jack Corbett pointed out that there was an option on Pay.gov, the Treasury’s online payment platform, where Americans could go to throw their Venmo dollars at the gargantuan national debt. You can also use PayPal. The page is titled “Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt.”
The expansion of payment options comes amid growing public concern over the debt, which has surged from $19.59 trillion in 2010 to its current level, an increase of 87%, according to the Treasury Department.
The donation program has existed since 1996, with a total of $67.3 million contributed — an amount that remains negligible compared to the federal debt.
Samson Mow, CEO of Bitcoin technology firm JAN3, compared the effort to “sending Bitcoin to a burn address.”
President Donald Trump’s recently enacted “Big, Beautiful Bill” is projected to add an additional $3.4 trillion to the debt over the next decade, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
The legislation prompted a public dispute between Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who criticized the bill for raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.
Despite the Treasury’s new push for public donations, the scale of the debt continues to raise questions about the sustainability of US fiscal policy and the effectiveness of such symbolic gestures.
