Wanna pay down the national debt? All major credit cards accepted

[Dreadnaught]

Wanna pay down the national debt? All major credit cards accepted:

https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/for...ormId=23779454

I am really curious to know how much they've made from that form.

[Bitter Jeweler]

Is it tax deductable?

[Supermarioman]

This is one of the most laughably epic scams I have ever seen.

[Ominous Gamer]

and no goods, services, or other considerations are provided to the donors

Not even a thank you card

[CitizenCain]

I am really curious to know how much they've made from that form.

Probably practically nothing.

When Virginia Delegate Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, set up the “Tax Me More Fund” in 2002, he did it to make a point: Those complaining the most loudly about spending “cuts” in Richmond could put their own money where their mouth was and make a voluntary contribution to the state.

Last year - to supplement a $74 billion 2008-10 biennial state budget – they did just that. Total collected: $1,500, according to the Virginia Department of Taxation.

That’s better than pre-recession 2006, when just $19.36 was donated, In fact, since 2002, the fund has collected a grand total of just $12,887.04, which doesn’t even pay the salary of one part-time state employee.

I guess that means Virginians think they’re already taxed quite enough.

Not nearly enough to pay for its administration...

[Ominous Gamer]

I've got a $10 Visa gift card from Asus, I'm almost tempted to see what happens...
Paying down the national debt, one motherboard rebate at a time!

[Dreadnaught]

It would be cool if they at least sent you a neat e-mail confirmation or image or something...

[CitizenCain]

I've got a $10 Visa gift card from Asus, I'm almost tempted to see what happens...

This is probably my inner anarchist talking, but I'm *really* tempted to see what happens if I put huge payments on stolen credit card #'s with this... and it also makes me wonder how difficult it would be to get my congressman's credit card details. Hmm...

[wiggin]

This isn't new (well, the website may be) - it's been possible to make a payment towards the national debt for quite some time, now. I can't recall where I saw the article, but there was a nice one talking about trends in receipts to this fund, largest donations, average number, etc. I vaguely recall the numbers they were talking about were in the $5-10 million/year range, though this is a very foggy memory and the numbers fluctuated quite a bit from year to year. Bottom line: better than nothing, but just a very small drop in a very large bucket (figure it's like each citizen paid an extra third of a penny in taxes).

I would seriously consider making a contribution myself, if I could get a legal piece of information saying that my personal slice of the national debt was decreased by X amount. It wouldn't mean that much (since the national debt has macroeconomic consequences, and since it will largely be paid for by taxes that won't be indexed individually), but I would feel a lot better psychologically by being totally 'debt free'. Figure that the national debt is something like $40k per person - that's not that much for a middle class American, when you think about it - a car loan for a nicer minivan/SUV, or half a down payment on a house, or whatever (and financed at quite low interest rates, to boot!). I could probably pay off my chunk and my wife's chunk in 10 years without a significant decrease in my standard of living or savings. (For that matter, would it count as a 'charitable contribution', and reduce my tax burden?)

The reason I wouldn't do it, though, is that such voluntary donations only encourage poor fiscal responsibility on the part of Congress. The real solution to our fiscal hole is some measured spending cuts in discretionary programs, significant restructuring of mandatory programs, tax reform, and smart regulation of our most expensive messes (health care and defense procurements come to mind). These are politically difficult to carry out, but not a hugely insurmountable problem that would entail an austerity regime or anything. Even holding debt growth to ~1-2% of GDP a year would quickly reduce our debt to manageable levels again.

Oddly enough, I've been greatly encouraged by Israel's example in the last decade or so. Israel has been notorious for huge deficits, poor budgetary planning, a bloated public sector, and a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 100%. They have an even more dysfunctional political system than the US, with different coalition parties demanding wildly different spending priorities. Yet in the last few years, the PM and finance ministry have managed to browbeat the various ministries into fairly reasonable budget requests, and very tight expenditure growth. Debt has dropped below 80% of GDP and looks to continue its downward trend (largely due to robust GDP growth, projected at 3.7% this year, coupled with minimal deficits), despite a small blip upwards due to the recession. Tax policy, while still needing a long ways to go, has shown some definite improvements. The healthcare system is fairly well managed and relatively cheap for the quality of care available. Much of the government-owned industries (a number of banks, utilities, defense companies, transportation, etc.) have been privatized or are in the process of being privatized, which has reaped significant benefits in terms of cost savings, revenue from the sales, and better competition. They've adopted multi-year budgets instead of the yearly haggle, and have drafted some serious long-term budget plans, with salutatory results. I won't say there haven't been some bumps along the way, but things have actually worked out pretty well so far. I wouldn't be surprised to see Israel's debt at or below 60% of GDP within a decade.

I guess my point is that Israel has far less maneuvering room than the US - they have higher funding costs for their debt, a tiny currency that cannot stray too far from the dollar lest exporters be screwed, and a political system that practically envies the 'efficient' way in which laws are passed in Washington. They labor under an enormous burden for the sake of defense (far more outlays as a percentage of GDP, not to mention taking skilled workers out of the labor force, knock-on effects from higher taxes, etc.)... yet they've managed to turn themselves around. Congress should be able to do the same, if only the political will existed.


On a somewhat amusing note, a friend of mine recently was shocked to learn that Obama is a smoker (I know, what planet has she been on for the last few years?). She started a Facebook group offering that every member of the group promised to pay $5 towards the national debt if Obama quit. I think she has 20-some members so far. When you think about it, though, this would be a nice incentive system. If large citizen's groups (ranging into the millions?) volunteered small contributions towards the national debt if X policy was implemented, one might be able to bribe Congress or the White House to get things done, yes? Sort of a performance-based reward system on a national scale.