Tired of hearing about how bad the federal debt is? Turns out you can donate money to the United States Treasury to help pay off the public debt:
Thank you for your contribution which will be deposited to the account “Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt.” Your contribution is accepted under the provisions of 31 U.S.C. 3113 which authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to accept conditional gifts to the United States for the purpose of reducing the public debt. These donations are voluntary, and no goods, services, or other considerations are provided to the donors.
It sounds like these donations are specifically limited to only paying down the public debt.
As of 31 October 2011 the total public debt is $14,993,709,000,000. As of the 2010 Census there are 308,745,538 people in America, bringing the per person amount to roughly $48,563.33. Not exactly a trivial amount.
I’d be curious to know how many people donate to that account and approximately what those amounts look like.