Venmo a gift to help pay Uncle Sam's debt? You can, if you really want

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.

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Feeling flush? Americans can Venmo government to help pay off US debt

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