In an era where splitting dinner bills and paying rent through smartphone apps has become commonplace, the US Treasury has quietly embraced the digital age with an unexpectedly modern twist: Americans can now use Venmo to help chip away at the $36.22 trillion national debt.
The Treasury’s official pay.gov website lists Venmo alongside more traditional payment methods like bank transfers and credit cards for citizens who feel compelled to make voluntary contributions toward reducing the public debt. The option appears with the same bureaucratic matter-of-factness as filing taxes, complete with a government-issued privacy policy and secure payment processing.
“Use this form for contributions to reduce the public debt,” the Treasury’s website states plainly, as if asking someone to help pay for a friend’s pizza rather than the world’s largest economy’s outstanding obligations.
The program itself is not new — Congress established the account in 1843 for patriots wanting to express their loyalty through cold, hard cash. What is new is the ability to send that patriotic gesture with the same app that Matt Gaetz used to pay for, um, special services.
Bradley Benson, a spokesman for the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, previously told reporters that the department added modern payment options, including PayPal and Amazon, between 2014 and 2017 to make contributing easier. Venmo appears to have joined the roster more recently as part of the government’s broader embrace of digital payment platforms.
The practical impact, however, remains negligible. In 2024, Americans donated just $2,785,754.76 to pay down the debt. That sum represents roughly 0.000008% of the current national debt, or about what the government spends every 64 seconds.
The largest single contribution on record was $12 million in 1994, though Treasury policy prevents officials from identifying donors, even when benefactors publicly claim credit for their largesse.
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