Bwhah hah ha ha ha!!

[AA7Dragoon]

Moses, Mary, and Joseph!  I have just found perhaps one of the most cherished and hilarious links on the Internet!  You won't believe your eyes when you see this!

The Treasury Department of the United States of America has their own FAQ describing the National Debt and how it works here:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/resources/faq/faq_publicdebt.htm

Scroll down to the final question:

How do you make a contribution to reduce the debt?

There are two ways for you to make a contribution to reduce the debt:

You can make a contribution online either by credit card, checking or savings account at Pay.gov
You can write a check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and in the memo section, notate that it's a Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public. Mail your check to:

Attn Dept G
Bureau of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

CLICK THE LINK:
https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?agencyFormId=23779454

ROFL!  Can you believe it?  Can you seriously believe something like this exists?

[Legion]

Moses, Mary, and Joseph!  I have just found perhaps one of the most cherished and hilarious links on the Internet!  You won't believe your eyes when you see this!

The Treasury Department of the United States of America has their own FAQ describing the National Debt and how it works here:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/resources/faq/faq_publicdebt.htm

Scroll down to the final question:

How do you make a contribution to reduce the debt?

There are two ways for you to make a contribution to reduce the debt:

You can make a contribution online either by credit card, checking or savings account at Pay.gov
You can write a check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and in the memo section, notate that it's a Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public. Mail your check to:

Attn Dept G
Bureau of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

CLICK THE LINK:
https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?agencyFormId=23779454

ROFL!  Can you believe it?  Can you seriously believe something like this exists?

I don't know why you're laughing, I think it's sad.

Good find.

[DrumsofWar]

I think you should extort your portion of the national debt to force them to legalize gay marriage nationwide.

[Xenon]

Can you believe it?  Can you seriously believe something like this exists?

Sadly, yes. 

[Thalraxal]

Wow.  I don't know which part amuses me more about that.  The thought of paying off part of the national debt with a Credit Card, or the fact that acting as an individual citizen to pay off the national debt can easily be compared to peeing in the ocean.

[Frozty]

If everybody just donated $10, we'd only be 2 trillion dollars in debt! What a bargain!

[Marco]

Well, it isn't as if they advertise it like a charity or pour lots of resources into advertising this.  Maybe if they wasted a lot of resources foolishly advertising 'donate to debt reduction', then we could be a little pissed.  Looks like someone just quickly set up a donation link and put it up in the hopes that some people would occasionally click on it and might contribute to the problem of the national debt.  Everyone hates the debt obviously and some of the ways that money was spent.  That money wasn't always spent ethically.  But a lot of it was necessary to the future of the country.

Reasons like this are exactly why I don't like to debate politics.  Both/multiple sides usually have valid points and ultimately every solution to every problem is flawed.  The debate itself is important though.  We need solutions people hate, because it ultimately motivates future change as well.  The only time America will ever be 100 percent screwed is if they are stagnant; if they did nothing.

[AA7Dragoon]

I think you should extort your portion of the national debt to force them to legalize gay marriage nationwide.

Alas, I cannot.  Read the fine print, DoW.

These donations are voluntary, and no goods, services, or other considerations are provided to the donors.

Yes, Thalraxal.  Good points.  There's nothing like asking the public citizen to pay off the government's debt with a credit card.  Although rather than peeing into an ocean, you are actually drinking copious amounts of it.  As a result, you dehydrate and go mad.

[tipereth]

The government asks the public for money all the time, that's what government bonds are. A chunk of the debt is owed TO THE PUBLIC.

[Thalraxal]

Yes, Thalraxal.  Good points.  There's nothing like asking the public citizen to pay off the government's debt with a credit card.  Although rather than peeing into an ocean, you are actually drinking copious amounts of it.  As a result, you dehydrate and go mad.

Heh.  Trying to drink the ocean is a much better analogy than mine was for this!  Doubly so for the madness.

[mAc Chaos]

Why don't they just stop spending so much if they don't want the debt to be so big.

[Negi]

Why don't they just stop spending so much if they don't want the debt to be so big.

The quoted passage is retarded.

First of all, a great deal of the government's debt is to people in America.  Second, the debt that we owe to china doesn't matter, because they've gotten themselves in quite a bind by buying too much American debt/currency.  In fact, if the chinese try to "diversify their bonds", they will inevitably lose money because that amount of American stuff has the power to drive down the dollar.  This would actually be good for our economy, as strange as that may sound!

There would be no surge in interest rates because since Americans are saving rather than spending, all of the debt would just be soaked up by our population!

[DrumsofWar]

Well, it isn't as if they advertise it like a charity or pour lots of resources into advertising this.  Maybe if they wasted a lot of resources foolishly advertising 'donate to debt reduction', then we could be a little pissed.  Looks like someone just quickly set up a donation link and put it up in the hopes that some people would occasionally click on it and might contribute to the problem of the national debt.  Everyone hates the debt obviously and some of the ways that money was spent.  That money wasn't always spent ethically.  But a lot of it was necessary to the future of the country.

Reasons like this are exactly why I don't like to debate politics.  Both/multiple sides usually have valid points and ultimately every solution to every problem is flawed.  The debate itself is important though.  We need solutions people hate, because it ultimately motivates future change as well.  The only time America will ever be 100 percent screwed is if they are stagnant; if they did nothing.

Except that's the exact problem right there - fiscal policy is not politics, it is economics.

The two largest sources of our national debt are without question entitlement programs (Medicare and so forth) and national defense.  National defense is rising but is being countered with reductions in spending on large Cold War-esque programs like the Comanche (Canceled after a quarter trillion dollars wasted) and the F-32 Lightning fighter program (possibly the last human-piloted fighter to be ever manufactured).  A drawdown in overseas theaters and nuclear disarmament might finally send the annual national defense budget under $600 billion for the first time in nearly 2 decades.

The other issue, entitlement programs, is harder to deal with.  Increased longevity means a greater cost for the program and obviously, less employed taxpayers paying into it. 

Social Security can be easily fixed with a retirement age of 69 but medical care is an issue of the costs of shared insurance risk.  Individual payment will never cost less than a larger pool of payers who absorb the overall cost, but that requires an acceptance that universal health care is economically and financially logical.