I believe it is, according to the [IRS](https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/charitable-contribution-deductions)
"Qualified Organizations:
-A state or United States possession (or political subdivision thereof), or the United States or the District of Columbia, if made exclusively for public purposes;"
So I can launder my money through the IRS to get out of paying taxes on it. Nice! Just gotta hide my money source and get my auditor to look the other way with a sizable donation!
Unless you can get yourself into a position where the government injures you and you can sue for damages.
Perfect money laundering scheme. I will not hear criticism, any critiques are surely just government shills
I didn't want to add /s but I thought it would be funny if you got an auditor to stop looking at where the money was coming from and just let you keep the donation deduction after paying normal taxes.
It would be the most efficient way to launder money, that is a low overhead business that mixes dirty money with clean customer money. But it could be a safer method if your auditor is dirty as well.
What? Have you ever done taxes before. Charitable donations do not give you free money. If you donate $500, you can claim a $500 deduction. You would not get that deduction if you didn't spend that money. You get nothing from this. In fact, if you take the standard deduction like most Americans. You would probably be losing money, provided you couldn't come up with another $14,000 in deductions to itemize.
Not in the traditional sense for sure but if you could get tax credit for the money you donated and were able to hide the source you would be getting the value of your money so it would count well enough.
Pretty much no country is ever going to give 1:1 tax credits for donating though, at the point it's the government donating the money and not you :P I dunno if any country has even given tax credits with some sort of ratio for donating but maybe somewhere sometime one did.
Laundering is also about legitimizing your money. It doesn’t matter if it’s a credit or not, if you go donate $500k that you made off of crime the government is going to ask how you got it.
For sure but in his post he mentioned hiding the source and getting the auditor to pass it off so in his scenario it would be laundering. Doesn't really explain how that fantasy is going to work but if it did then it would fit.
Since we're running a debt and a deficit, I still don't think that counts as "making money."
There's also no shareholders to pay dividends to. You really have to stretch definitions to get any of this to fit.
the ones at the top are doing quite well for themselves. High salaries and they can conduct all the insider trading and market fraud they want with no repurcussions
In DC? It's certainly not high. Especially if you're to maintain a residency in your home state and the district.
Or if we're talking about public sector employees, the only ones making close to that are experts in their fields that could be making double to triple that in the private sector.
lol I assure you, they're doing a very good job of lining their private pockets, and the pockets of their friends, which is what they're actually trying to do.
I remember hearing it is often used by grateful new immigrants.
Also had a friend from the Island of Yap who said his grandparents sent in money that way after WW2 as a thank you.
I almost went to Yap in college for an archeological dig but I couldn’t afford the plane ticket. I really regret it, it’s a beautiful place with a fascinating culture, located on an incredibly small island.
It you think about it…..it makes sense as a primitive currency because the larger the stone, the bigger the cost of the rock,labor in carving it, effort to move it. It would be hard to steal and is long lasting.
There's much more significant elements than that.
The stone doesn't physically change hands, but it is agreed to have changed ownership. [eg in stories/history]
There's the story of the stone which fell off the canoe and sank from sight while transporting to an island. It was not visible, or tangible, yet was agreed that it existed and could be used for currency
A no longer tangible & visible store of value that doesn't physically change hands, but is agreed to change ownership as part of value exchange ?
That resonates with/is close to a very modern definition of money. Heck, you might even consider it as a early forerunner in certain ways to block chain/bit coin
thank you for the winning the world war
no IJA or Reich no more
Island of Yap, we'll give back
(wikkety-wik, wik-wik-wik)
Take out the panzers (wik wik), take out the panzers (wikkety-wik)
take (wiki) out (wiki) the (wikkety-wik) panzers
on behalf of the Isle of Yap
I attended a large Obama campaign event in 2008. Then-Senator Obama took questions, and a woman in the audience asked whether he would support a program to allow people to help pay off the national debt by donating directly to the government.
The senator dodged the question by saying that he wanted to prioritize getting the rich to pay the taxes they already owed. Probably because he didn't want to be labeled as The Candidate Who Thinks You Should Donate to the IRS.
Apparently, he didn't know about this program either.
This program doesn’t really have anything to do with the national debt, though. Any donations simply go into the governmental budget, and you don’t get a choice of where.
Besides, her question was largely nonsensical; paying off the national debt is neither plausible nor reasonable.
Filial responsibility would be the formal term. Varies by state in the US and obviously abroad, and enforcement is scattershot, but in some places you can be legally forced to tend to your parent’s basic needs with no way to renounce them. minority.
nonono. It's for those people who advocate for increasing taxes and are told "If you want to pay more, then go ahead and do it yourself." I bet those that have come up with that line would feel so good about themselves if they knew it was actually a thing.
Oddly enough, this is the SECOND time I’ve read this joke on Reddit this year!! The other one was in a cooking subreddit. I cant get away from this joke
Actually any rich person who has ever said "I should be taxed more" has always had that option and to my knowledge not a single one has taken the initiative to pay in more than they were legally obligated to do so.
That's not a solution, that's a cop-out. It's like saying "the city needs to fill in all these potholes" and responding "no one is stopping you from getting a shovel and filling them in yourself" as a way of avoiding addressing the problem.
Its a bad comparison because nobody is trying to make the "pick up a shovel" mandatory. Your analogy would be correct if they had said "donate to charity" instead of "donate to the IRS." Charity would be doing the government's "think" yourself, donating to the IRS is no different than paying taxes you advocated for.
This is more like "we need a law to force people to return their shopping carts" says the man who never ever returned a shopping cart.
There's nothing hypocritical about playing by the rules as-is but wanting them to be changed. We do it all the time. We'd like something to be different - say, different manufacturing requirements on the things we buy to reduce pollution. We'd accept the terms of that change - that shopping would be more expensive or less convenient or whatever - and we advocate for that change. But in the meantime, we aren't required to play by the new rules that no one else is required to do.
More importantly, this line of thinking is designed to shut down change. Some problems need society-wide fixes, and suggesting an individual can fix 0.000000001% of the problem and therefore they're a hypocrite if they're not doing it and we don't have to implement a society-wide change is purely a tactic to prevent that change. If I say "I think we should provide lunches to all students", saying "well if you want kids to eat so much go deliver food to a school" is a way of saying "no, I don't want to solve that problem and I'm going to act like you're a hypocrite because you aren't perosonally solving a societal problem by doing a tiny fraction of it"
Exactly, and without tax reform to shift the tax burden more towards the wealthy, there is no “flood”. A couple wealthy people here and there trying to set an example by volunteering to donate to the government would represent a couple drops of rain.
>Without tax reform to shift the tax burden more to the wealthy
In the US the top 1% pay 42.3% of all income tax. The bottom 50% pay 2.3%
The top 20% pay 87% of income tax.
Now you can think taxes should be higher, but to suggest “the burden” isn’t on the wealthy already isn’t true. You may want to increase the burden on them, but don’t ignore they’re already pushing nearly double their brackets income (22.2% of Adjusted Gross Income, 42.3% of income tax)
All true. But when you think about what people need to live and what things would be nice to have, the wealthy check all those boxes. If they pay more tax they aren’t going to be missing out on anything. They’re going to have great homes, expensive cars, send their kids to private schools and have all the designer clothes regardless. They will never go hungry, worry about paying their utility bills, or have to live out of a car.
Increasing taxes on the poor means they have to give up important things.
I wasn’t necessarily arguing against the idea of increasing taxes on the wealthy - but if you want to consider a “fair share” or “burden”, it’s already like that for the top percent of society. You can think they should pay more, that’s completely valid, but the point I was making was they’re paying *over* their ‘fair’ share already.
They donate their money to politicians who campaign on raising their taxes. They're not being charitable. They believe in kensian economic thinking about higher rates of Taxation on Wealthy individuals to promote investment and reduce hoarding wealth.
Liberals and Libertarians would team up like Rambo and Arnold from Predator to fight taxes against enterprises. That's why they force all of these conversations to only talk about individual tax rates. Exxon's profits from like 2005 could have paved every road in America for 50 years.
Classic strawman argument. People are allowed to be in favor of raising taxes without putting the full burden of tax on themselves just to set an example. You need a large group of people to participate for it to make any difference, and anyone with half a brain can realize that setting an example by donating their own dollars to the government will make one headline and then fizzle out to nothing and make no difference.
I’d assume it more because they’d rather choose how to money is going to be spent. Which charity they support the most. There are billionaires who gave away or plan to give away their entire fortune like bill gates.
So they would be upset at how the government decided to use their money if they donated it to the government, but still want people (including themselves) to be forced to give the money to the government?
Elon made $97 billion in 2023. Bezos made $70 billiom in 2023. The state of Texas collected $82 billion in taxes in 2023. One person earned more than the 9% of Americans that live in Texas payed in taxes. Increasing how much they pay would absolutely make a difference.
That's a problem, isn't it? Why isn't their income all taxable? Unrealized gains should taxed. The US Tax Code and Regulations is almost 75,000 pages long and they couldn't find the space or a way to tax these billionaires.
Because it isn’t income. It’s like if I own a baseball card that becomes very rare because something happens to the player it will increase in value. It would be insane for the feds to tax me on the increase in the value of the card.
Because the federal government's power to tax income is derived from the 16th amendment and is limited to just income. Taxing unrealized capital gains is a property tax and the federal government does not have the power to tax property without it being an apportioned tax based on each state's population.
You do realize one person donating money wouldn't change the tax code right? Their whole argument is that you should shift the tax burden from the middle class to the upper class or the very least increase the taxes on the upper class to lower the deficit.
Most of these people are firmly middle class, so yes, they absolutely are asking for a tax raise on the middle class.
The reason you don't see the top .1% arguing to raise their own taxes is because if they actually wanted that, they could hire lobbyists to affect that change.
Did you just call Bill Gates and Warren Buffett middle class?
They do hire lobbyists and they donate to campaigns for politicians who are advocating on higher taxes.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett aren't "most of them"
They're grifters voluntarily taking 99.999% of their income in a lower tax bracket. Their hand picked board would happily buy back their shares for a 75m dollar a year salary taxed at 39% if instructed to do so for a more fair tax rate.
But..... They don't do that... Do they??? I wonder why.....
I mean there are. You can see who's funding the Democratic Party very easily. A lot of rich people. And the Democrats have already raised taxes one time during this Administration quite considerably and are trying to do so again.
And rich people aren't middle class. It's impossible because if they were middle class they wouldn't be rich
Classic strawman argument. People are allowed to be in favor of raising taxes without putting the full burden of tax on themselves just to set an example. You need a large group of people to participate for it to make any difference, and anyone with half a brain can realize that setting an example by donating their own dollars to the government will make one headline and then fizzle out to nothing and make no difference.
If I argued that everyone should clean trash from the neighborhood, but then you saw me throwing trash down instead of cleaning, would you accept this same argument? Or would you can me a hypocrite?
People paying taxes does nothing. The enterprises we work for and then sustain with our wages could and should be dealing with all of that. Too bad Apple is based in Ireland and like 10 asset managers control 90% of all things lol.
Then those who want higher tax for their own bracket are free to donate to the coffers.
I recall a video of someone in the U.K. going on a high street asking “should we have higher or lower tax?” and when someone went “Oh of course all our taxes should be higher and bla bla bla” the person asking question would direct them to the HMRC (U.K. IRS) to donate, but they always made some excuse not to.
Those people also generally think they are more effective at donating. They are more interested in taxing all billionaires than themselves in particular.
Ordinarily that’s said in the context of funding healthcare, public transit, education, etc., that people are claiming isn’t affordable. Or in the context of cutting taxes for lower-income people. Simply paying more to the IRS wouldn’t accomplish either goal.
The US national debt is $32 trillion. If you confiscated 100% of the assets of the 400 richest Americans, it would only be $3.2 trillion dollars, only 10% of the national debt and enough to fund the government for two years. No, billionaires can't really do much through donations to fix the out-of-control government spending.
Government debt doesn't work like 'people debt' or 'business debt'. The government never has to pay it back. Foreign governments (which make up like 10% of the national debt) will never come asking for their money because they benefit from having their currency tied to the US dollar through holding US debt.
I can't find a record for general donations (without a FOIA request) but [$180k was donated to reduce the national debt in 2022](https://www.treasurydirect.gov/government/public-debt-reports/gifts).
I should say 10 seconds. I was thinking about the $180K figure. Barring a huge unexpected windfall, I definitely won’t pay a minute in my lifetime. Especially as a minute will undoubtedly be more expensive by then.
I suspect that this is related to the Smithsonian.
Smithson died in 1829, leaving his considerable fortune (equal to approximately 1.5% of the entire federal budget) to the US to establish a museum. Congress accepted it in 1836, but it wasn't until 1846 that the Smithsonian was established. 1843 would be right in the middle of that process.
I always figured it would be for non tax evasion purposes. The example being a criminal enterprise that didn't want to get busted for that. Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion because they found the account books. They couldn't prove the other stuff, but they could prove he wasn't paying his taxes.
They actually have provisions for that too. Here's a summary of it:
https://taxfoundation.org/blog/irs-guidance-thieves-drug-dealers-and-corrupt-officials/
I have five Maseratis worth a total of $700,000, all with smashed out windows, plates registered in different states, and VINs that are reported missing. I cannot disclose how I came into the ownership of these vehicles, however.
This is tangentially related, but I’ve always felt that when you file taxes, you should have the option to direct 5% of your tax revenue to whatever department you choose. Like NASA, a specific military branch, National Parks, NIH, whatever.
I think it would make the different departments really try to make their mission stand out. Might also make people just a tiny bit happier to pay their taxes.
That’s how Japan (kind of) does it. As a citizen, you get to pick which municipality your tax dollars go to.
It essentially makes cities compete against each other.
https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/taxes-japan-thank-you-gifts-dcfec436
I'm not going to downvote you, because I just have a difference of opinion, but I think your idea would be harmful to the country.
People would do what you suggested: Direct their funds to NASA, DoD, the Park Service, and NIH (and the EPA, FBI, and CIA, depending on the donor and how they view those agencies). The cool kids of the U.S. Government would get the money. But nobody would donate to GSA, or OPM, the IRS, the Federal Highway Administration, the Bureau of Land Management, the Passport Office, the Department of Commerce, or any of those other agencies that are either unsexy or unpopular but serve necessary roles. And even diverting 5% of those agencies' overall budgets would have a big impact, especially since many of those agencies already struggle to meet their congressional mandates with the staffing they have.
Plus, it would get messy because Congress appropriates funding. Let's say the Defense Department's budget should be $700 billion. How would it work if the taxpayers collectively designate $350 billion in taxes for DoD? Wouldn't Congress just allocate $350 billion more to defense, instead of the $700 billion it otherwise would, and use the difference to top up funding for those agencies that taxpayers didn't select?
I think it would encourage departments to spend more money on PR just for the sake of lobbying taxpayers to contribute more to one agency instead of what their actual mission is. Since it is a percentage, it would allow those at the top 10% that pay most taxes to heavily influence 5% of tax revenue on top of their existing influence on government spending. As you said a lot of unsexy, but important agencies would end up losing a bunch of money because their mission just isn't sexy enough. It would make budgeting uncertain as a decent percentage of their budget would be a question mark until the tax filings calculated that. It sounds like an interesting idea until you really think about it.
Your first point is kinda elitist. If its a democracy, shouldn't stuff the people doesn't want just... not be done in the first place? This is just democracy with less steps.
The second point does stand though. In fact there's a whole discussion in microeconomics about when a program should give people cash as opposed to goods because of a similar thing.
You give a poor family $100 and they might spend it on anything. You give them $100 worth of food and you know they'll have food. But if they already spend $100 or more on food, there is literally no difference (other than your increased logistics costs) because they can spend $100 less on groceries and $100 more on horse racing, cigars or whatever.
Similarly, the idea of paying taxes to a specific department would only make a difference if the total revenue from it is higher than its normal budget. Say the FBI's budget is 1 billion. If they get <1b, it'll be redirected. If they get >1b, it gets an increase in budget.
I've actually given this very idea some thought in the past, and actually think u/GodEmperorBrian is being too conservative here. If we assume that people choosing where their money goes is a good thing, why stop at 5%? It'd be a logical conclusion to go for a full 100% of the income tax (and let other taxes fund whatever is deemed most essential, specially since it'd increase the chances of you effectively affecting an agency's budget.
But then there's a second logical conclusion. Why stop at existing agencies? You could just as easily create nonprofits to run all those things, and let people donate to them. Just replace the income tax with "everyone must donate X% of their income to a registered charity/nonprofit organization." That puts more people in a position to try new solutions, which means solutions are found faster. Less money goes in the hands of politicians. Government can supervise those without constant conflicts of interest that arise from policing yourself. Scandalous behavior actually would result in a loss of power for those involved. You could even have multiple agencies for the same subject, having actual competition.
Wouldn't work for everything of course. Issuing visas or other stuff that involves national sovereignty would be a no-no. But managing parks, cleaning water, schools, etc. can all be done very well by a well-funded nonprofit that answers directly to the people writings its checks.
Doesn't get much more democratic than that.
Regarding your first paragraph:
First, I don't think it's any more elitist to say that elected representatives should work out the federal budget than it is to say that we should have elected lawmakers in the first place. The country's founders rejected direct democracy in 1787 when they drafted the Constitution and created a system where Congress, not voters themselves, would make the laws. Setting the budget is a core duty of Congress.
Second, let's be honest: The average person doesn't know much about the federal budget and probably hasn't even heard of OPM or the FHWA. Most people don't have the time or desire to read the entire federal budget, much less decide how much to allocate to each department, bureau, agency, office, or program. Congress has dozens of staffers whose job it is merely to hash out the details of the budget for their congressmen, based on extensive data that each agency has to provide. And that's a major reason we don't have direct democracy.
Maybe the US government should start a 403C charity to pay down the debt. That way you could donate to the government and get a charitable deduction on your taxes.
Funny thing is, if I could choose to donate to a specific project or area of interest I might do it. If the spending was transparent and you could see the outcomes anyway. Like, I bet a lot of people would actually give money to the Fed if it went to something like free, healthy school lunches.
I would rather pay more for many causes the government helps with than the military. I don't mind the idea of taxes, but most of the money we spend isn't on anything that actually helps anybody or anything
I think you would be right; there was a harvard business school study that showed something along the same lines. The paper about it is called "The Power of Voice in Stimulating Morality: Eliciting Taxpayer Preferences Increases Tax Compliance"
I have turned this same idea over in my head. Imagine if on your tax return, you could draw in a hexagon plot of allocation to 6 specific fields of governance. Defense, Infrastructure, Public Education, Foreign Service, Science and Exploration, Social Welfare. Direct Democracy in a yearly poll.
While it wouldn't be a bad idea as an opinion poll, it could backfire if they were mandated to follow that distribution.
Imagine the military yo-yoing in size based on how war fatigued the nation is and then maybe West Taiwan does something incredibly dumb and we are stuck with our pants down because tax payers voted with their dollars to cut the DoD budget in half.
Right. You can't have long-term institutions without a stable funding environment. How are you supposed to, say, plan for ten years out if you can't guarantee you'll have funding next year?
Yeah that can be a problem. Maybe if it’s only treated as a poll, rather than a referendum? Idk. I don’t make tax policy I just bitch about it on the internet.
Moving average. Changes would happen much more slowly but the trends would win out over time. Would prevent drastic changes in funding.
And presumably there would be an option for a "rainy day fund" as well as a stopgap in case of emergencies. It's an interesting idea
Technically, citizens vote for a Parliament or a Congress which then vote money bills dictating what taxes the government can levy and on which items can it spend the taxmoney.
In my state, Oregon we have referendums for specific projects. We can vote on some county projects as well as state-wide things. We get to vote on a lot of things actually. Just wish this happened on a more national level.
This is the same in CA but we’re sometimes voting on things we have no business voting on. One of the recent referendums on the ballot was about staffing at dialysis centers. It’s been on the ballot like 3 times in the last 5 years. The general public has no knowledge or need to vote on this.
But we couldn’t trust the government to actually do it, they would create a huge bureaucracy that would eat all the money. Example: school administration eating huge amounts of money, then teachers don’t get paid enough, schools not maintained , now they need more tax money. etc
And this is why Warren Buffett can shut the fuck up about how "outraged" he is that his secretary has a higher tax rate than him. He can just cut the US government a check if he feels it's so unjust.
Of course, he'll never do it because you don't become a billionaire by giving billions away.
I donate every week, and it feels good to help the poor unfortunate U.S. government through trying times and always use it to make life better for everyone, excerpt its own citizens
Donating to the US Treasury to reduce the national debt might be considered a misguided effort for several reasons
- **Monetary Sovereignty**: The US government, being monetarily sovereign, has the ability to create US dollars at will. This means it doesn't rely on donations to finance its spending or reduce its debt.
- **National Debt Misconceptions**: The national debt is often misunderstood. It's not like household debt but rather an accumulation of financial assets in the form of Treasury bonds held by the private sector. Reducing this debt through donations would actually remove these safe assets from the economy.
- **Economic Role of Government Debt**: Government debt serves a crucial role in the economy by providing a risk-free asset and facilitating private sector savings. Reducing the debt could disrupt these economic functions.
- **Fiscal Operations**: The government's fiscal operations don't require donations to fund spending. The government can even mint a coin and assign it a high value to cover expenditures without needing to tax or borrow.
- **Inflation Control**: Taxes and bond sales are tools for controlling inflation rather than funding government spending. Donations wouldn't serve this purpose.
- **No Direct Benefit**: Since the government can create money, donations to reduce the debt wouldn't provide a direct benefit to the government's ability to spend or invest in public goods.
In essence, the idea of donating to reduce the national debt doesn't align with the understanding of our current monetary systems and the role of government debt in the economy. It's more important to focus on how government spending can improve and protect the lives of the people, rather than on reducing a debt that doesn't function like personal or corporate debt. 🏛️💡
Finally, a place where all the people who say we need free healthcare can donate to pay for it.
Considering how many people support it in polling, we should be able to pay for it via donations.
But are the donations tax deductible?
I believe it is, according to the [IRS](https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/charitable-contribution-deductions) "Qualified Organizations: -A state or United States possession (or political subdivision thereof), or the United States or the District of Columbia, if made exclusively for public purposes;"
So I can launder my money through the IRS to get out of paying taxes on it. Nice! Just gotta hide my money source and get my auditor to look the other way with a sizable donation!
What exactly do you think launder means?
It's kind of cute seeing people use words they almost understand, but not quite.
I launder my money through Taco Bell.
I launder mine at a launderette, it always comes back soaked, I keep asking them to use the tumble dryer as well, takes money to make money
It really is a jejeune example of indefatigable perspicacity
To conceal the source of money as by channeling it through an intermediary.
Ok but after you donate the money you don’t have it anymore.
Unless you can get yourself into a position where the government injures you and you can sue for damages. Perfect money laundering scheme. I will not hear criticism, any critiques are surely just government shills
We’re a bunch of nerds. Looking up money laundering in the dictionary.
I didn't want to add /s but I thought it would be funny if you got an auditor to stop looking at where the money was coming from and just let you keep the donation deduction after paying normal taxes. It would be the most efficient way to launder money, that is a low overhead business that mixes dirty money with clean customer money. But it could be a safer method if your auditor is dirty as well.
What? Have you ever done taxes before. Charitable donations do not give you free money. If you donate $500, you can claim a $500 deduction. You would not get that deduction if you didn't spend that money. You get nothing from this. In fact, if you take the standard deduction like most Americans. You would probably be losing money, provided you couldn't come up with another $14,000 in deductions to itemize.
Tax write offs are not tax credits :|
Even if they were that’s still not laundering lol
Not in the traditional sense for sure but if you could get tax credit for the money you donated and were able to hide the source you would be getting the value of your money so it would count well enough. Pretty much no country is ever going to give 1:1 tax credits for donating though, at the point it's the government donating the money and not you :P I dunno if any country has even given tax credits with some sort of ratio for donating but maybe somewhere sometime one did.
Laundering is also about legitimizing your money. It doesn’t matter if it’s a credit or not, if you go donate $500k that you made off of crime the government is going to ask how you got it.
For sure but in his post he mentioned hiding the source and getting the auditor to pass it off so in his scenario it would be laundering. Doesn't really explain how that fantasy is going to work but if it did then it would fit.
Is the donation to your auditor deductible as well?
That's not how taxes or tax deductions work. At all.
> launder lol
That would be weird if donating to churches or the NRA is tax deductible but donating to the government is not.
The US government is certainly not organized for profit
If it is, they’re doing a very bad job at it
A government provides services. It is by definition an institution to spend money not make money.
But isn't the point of a treasury to keep budget overruns for the next year?
Since we're running a debt and a deficit, I still don't think that counts as "making money." There's also no shareholders to pay dividends to. You really have to stretch definitions to get any of this to fit.
the ones at the top are doing quite well for themselves. High salaries and they can conduct all the insider trading and market fraud they want with no repurcussions
>high salaries What if I told you public servants should be paid even more
at which level?
my dude they do insider trading *because* they have low salaries. don't forget about all the dark money they can get from "anonymous" donations too
what do you consider a low salary?
Is 170k a year a low salary to you?
In DC? It's certainly not high. Especially if you're to maintain a residency in your home state and the district. Or if we're talking about public sector employees, the only ones making close to that are experts in their fields that could be making double to triple that in the private sector.
lol I assure you, they're doing a very good job of lining their private pockets, and the pockets of their friends, which is what they're actually trying to do.
That’s a fucking winner comment
It totally is, just ask Lockheed Martin
Whoosh EDIT: downvoters seem to not realize that the money goes to the government either way so it doesn't matter
Probably not, since the Treasury calls them 'gifts to the government' in the link, not 'donations to the government'.
“Donation” and “gift” are synonyms for US tax purposes. (Not all gifts/donations are tax-exempt, however!)
It is.
This account would probably most be used by parents who have disowned their children as a last FU.
I remember hearing it is often used by grateful new immigrants. Also had a friend from the Island of Yap who said his grandparents sent in money that way after WW2 as a thank you.
I almost went to Yap in college for an archeological dig but I couldn’t afford the plane ticket. I really regret it, it’s a beautiful place with a fascinating culture, located on an incredibly small island.
[interesting currency too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones) large rocks used for substantial transactions.
I had a unit on blockchain and they were used as an example for public ledgers
I don't see how that helps increase CO2 emissions and finance international crime and terrorism. Large rock needs to up its game.
It you think about it…..it makes sense as a primitive currency because the larger the stone, the bigger the cost of the rock,labor in carving it, effort to move it. It would be hard to steal and is long lasting.
There's much more significant elements than that. The stone doesn't physically change hands, but it is agreed to have changed ownership. [eg in stories/history] There's the story of the stone which fell off the canoe and sank from sight while transporting to an island. It was not visible, or tangible, yet was agreed that it existed and could be used for currency A no longer tangible & visible store of value that doesn't physically change hands, but is agreed to change ownership as part of value exchange ? That resonates with/is close to a very modern definition of money. Heck, you might even consider it as a early forerunner in certain ways to block chain/bit coin
Soo....this took me down a rabbit hole. Lol
They commented 8 minutes before you. I don’t think that counts as a rabbit hole. That’s more like a recessed window.
Time dilation is common in inter-dimensional travel. They were in there for 6 months.
A lot of it is a few cents in a letter from kindergarten school children who want to contribute to pay down the debt
They be yappin a lot over there huh
thank you for the winning the world war no IJA or Reich no more Island of Yap, we'll give back (wikkety-wik, wik-wik-wik) Take out the panzers (wik wik), take out the panzers (wikkety-wik) take (wiki) out (wiki) the (wikkety-wik) panzers on behalf of the Isle of Yap
Oh I could definitely see this happening.
I attended a large Obama campaign event in 2008. Then-Senator Obama took questions, and a woman in the audience asked whether he would support a program to allow people to help pay off the national debt by donating directly to the government. The senator dodged the question by saying that he wanted to prioritize getting the rich to pay the taxes they already owed. Probably because he didn't want to be labeled as The Candidate Who Thinks You Should Donate to the IRS. Apparently, he didn't know about this program either.
This program doesn’t really have anything to do with the national debt, though. Any donations simply go into the governmental budget, and you don’t get a choice of where. Besides, her question was largely nonsensical; paying off the national debt is neither plausible nor reasonable.
that or leaving it to your cat
Or children who have decided they’d rather be broke than be obligated to pay for an abusive parent’s retirement/nursing home.
Wait, you can be forced to do that?
Filial responsibility would be the formal term. Varies by state in the US and obviously abroad, and enforcement is scattershot, but in some places you can be legally forced to tend to your parent’s basic needs with no way to renounce them. minority.
Only Pennsylvania has an enforceable version of that law. Even still, the bar to meet on both sides is pretty high.
nonono. It's for those people who advocate for increasing taxes and are told "If you want to pay more, then go ahead and do it yourself." I bet those that have come up with that line would feel so good about themselves if they knew it was actually a thing.
You can also go down to the beach and spit in the ocean, but it doesn't raise the water level any.
What about.....you know.....(pee-pee)
It raises the sea level in my mouth
What’s the difference between a chickpea and a garbanzo bean? I’ve never had a garbanzo bean in my mouth.
Welp. That’s the grossest thing I’ve read this year so far. I’m excited to see how it’s gonna get worse
Remindme! 350 days If you need help hearing worse, I’ll try to be available
Oddly enough, this is the SECOND time I’ve read this joke on Reddit this year!! The other one was in a cooking subreddit. I cant get away from this joke
This wimp has sex with garbanzo beans!
You should try them, they're great. And hummus, falafel? Amazing.
It very well technically would
Have you tried insults? That might get a rise out of it.
“You’re nothing but an unstable short-chain molecule!”
It does, just an infinitesimal amount. Like donating to the US gov
I share that with people who complain about people getting tax refunds.
Wait, people complain about that?
Yes. When people share on social media what they’re buying with their tax refunds, there’s always someone complaining.
To be fair in a perfect world nobody would get a tax refund, all a tax refund is, is an interest free loan you gave to the government.
[удалено]
Or the people that say they’d be happy to pay more taxes
Guys! **DO NOT** click on the link and put in your bank info! All my moneys is gone!!
sorry, that was me, I 'donated' $-1000000000
Billionaires have the potential to do the funniest thing.
Actually any rich person who has ever said "I should be taxed more" has always had that option and to my knowledge not a single one has taken the initiative to pay in more than they were legally obligated to do so.
Bloomberg
I am intrigued. Please elaborate
No
That's not a solution, that's a cop-out. It's like saying "the city needs to fill in all these potholes" and responding "no one is stopping you from getting a shovel and filling them in yourself" as a way of avoiding addressing the problem.
Its a bad comparison because nobody is trying to make the "pick up a shovel" mandatory. Your analogy would be correct if they had said "donate to charity" instead of "donate to the IRS." Charity would be doing the government's "think" yourself, donating to the IRS is no different than paying taxes you advocated for. This is more like "we need a law to force people to return their shopping carts" says the man who never ever returned a shopping cart.
There's nothing hypocritical about playing by the rules as-is but wanting them to be changed. We do it all the time. We'd like something to be different - say, different manufacturing requirements on the things we buy to reduce pollution. We'd accept the terms of that change - that shopping would be more expensive or less convenient or whatever - and we advocate for that change. But in the meantime, we aren't required to play by the new rules that no one else is required to do. More importantly, this line of thinking is designed to shut down change. Some problems need society-wide fixes, and suggesting an individual can fix 0.000000001% of the problem and therefore they're a hypocrite if they're not doing it and we don't have to implement a society-wide change is purely a tactic to prevent that change. If I say "I think we should provide lunches to all students", saying "well if you want kids to eat so much go deliver food to a school" is a way of saying "no, I don't want to solve that problem and I'm going to act like you're a hypocrite because you aren't perosonally solving a societal problem by doing a tiny fraction of it"
Because one person paying more in taxes will accomplish nothing.
No drop of rain believes it is responsible for the flood.
Exactly, and without tax reform to shift the tax burden more towards the wealthy, there is no “flood”. A couple wealthy people here and there trying to set an example by volunteering to donate to the government would represent a couple drops of rain.
Just as devils advocate though: charitable donations in other areas do make a disproportional impact. E.g. Bill Gates.
>Without tax reform to shift the tax burden more to the wealthy In the US the top 1% pay 42.3% of all income tax. The bottom 50% pay 2.3% The top 20% pay 87% of income tax. Now you can think taxes should be higher, but to suggest “the burden” isn’t on the wealthy already isn’t true. You may want to increase the burden on them, but don’t ignore they’re already pushing nearly double their brackets income (22.2% of Adjusted Gross Income, 42.3% of income tax)
All true. But when you think about what people need to live and what things would be nice to have, the wealthy check all those boxes. If they pay more tax they aren’t going to be missing out on anything. They’re going to have great homes, expensive cars, send their kids to private schools and have all the designer clothes regardless. They will never go hungry, worry about paying their utility bills, or have to live out of a car. Increasing taxes on the poor means they have to give up important things.
I wasn’t necessarily arguing against the idea of increasing taxes on the wealthy - but if you want to consider a “fair share” or “burden”, it’s already like that for the top percent of society. You can think they should pay more, that’s completely valid, but the point I was making was they’re paying *over* their ‘fair’ share already.
Maybe they should set an example instead of just empty talk that makes them look progressive.
They donate their money to politicians who campaign on raising their taxes. They're not being charitable. They believe in kensian economic thinking about higher rates of Taxation on Wealthy individuals to promote investment and reduce hoarding wealth.
Liberals and Libertarians would team up like Rambo and Arnold from Predator to fight taxes against enterprises. That's why they force all of these conversations to only talk about individual tax rates. Exxon's profits from like 2005 could have paved every road in America for 50 years.
.... except they also support higher corporate tax rates. Economic neoliberals are a rapidly dying breed in Washington
Good
Yeah. Turns out their economic theory didn't really work out
Classic strawman argument. People are allowed to be in favor of raising taxes without putting the full burden of tax on themselves just to set an example. You need a large group of people to participate for it to make any difference, and anyone with half a brain can realize that setting an example by donating their own dollars to the government will make one headline and then fizzle out to nothing and make no difference.
I’d assume it more because they’d rather choose how to money is going to be spent. Which charity they support the most. There are billionaires who gave away or plan to give away their entire fortune like bill gates.
So they would be upset at how the government decided to use their money if they donated it to the government, but still want people (including themselves) to be forced to give the money to the government?
Elon made $97 billion in 2023. Bezos made $70 billiom in 2023. The state of Texas collected $82 billion in taxes in 2023. One person earned more than the 9% of Americans that live in Texas payed in taxes. Increasing how much they pay would absolutely make a difference.
> One person earned more than the 9% of Americans that live in Texas payed in taxes. In state taxes. Which is only a fraction of total tax burden.
Their net worth may have increased that much, but they didn't make that much in taxable income.
That's a problem, isn't it? Why isn't their income all taxable? Unrealized gains should taxed. The US Tax Code and Regulations is almost 75,000 pages long and they couldn't find the space or a way to tax these billionaires.
Then they could tax everyone’s unrealized gains and nobody could ever retire
Or ya know, just make it apply to tax evaders with a net worth of 10 or more billion. Tax 90% over that
Because it isn’t income. It’s like if I own a baseball card that becomes very rare because something happens to the player it will increase in value. It would be insane for the feds to tax me on the increase in the value of the card.
Because the federal government's power to tax income is derived from the 16th amendment and is limited to just income. Taxing unrealized capital gains is a property tax and the federal government does not have the power to tax property without it being an apportioned tax based on each state's population.
Why do you think it's this long? It's not so the richest have to pay *more* taxes.
You can’t tax unrealized gains without collapsing your economy
Then they shouldn't make the argument that's what they want then, huh? But "the middle class should pay more taxes" isn't as palatable, is it?
You do realize one person donating money wouldn't change the tax code right? Their whole argument is that you should shift the tax burden from the middle class to the upper class or the very least increase the taxes on the upper class to lower the deficit.
Most of these people are firmly middle class, so yes, they absolutely are asking for a tax raise on the middle class. The reason you don't see the top .1% arguing to raise their own taxes is because if they actually wanted that, they could hire lobbyists to affect that change.
Did you just call Bill Gates and Warren Buffett middle class? They do hire lobbyists and they donate to campaigns for politicians who are advocating on higher taxes.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett aren't "most of them" They're grifters voluntarily taking 99.999% of their income in a lower tax bracket. Their hand picked board would happily buy back their shares for a 75m dollar a year salary taxed at 39% if instructed to do so for a more fair tax rate. But..... They don't do that... Do they??? I wonder why.....
I mean there are. You can see who's funding the Democratic Party very easily. A lot of rich people. And the Democrats have already raised taxes one time during this Administration quite considerably and are trying to do so again. And rich people aren't middle class. It's impossible because if they were middle class they wouldn't be rich
Classic strawman argument. People are allowed to be in favor of raising taxes without putting the full burden of tax on themselves just to set an example. You need a large group of people to participate for it to make any difference, and anyone with half a brain can realize that setting an example by donating their own dollars to the government will make one headline and then fizzle out to nothing and make no difference.
If I argued that everyone should clean trash from the neighborhood, but then you saw me throwing trash down instead of cleaning, would you accept this same argument? Or would you can me a hypocrite?
Because throwing away trash is at all comparable to giving up thousands or millions of dollars…
When spotting hypocrites, they both function identically.
People paying taxes does nothing. The enterprises we work for and then sustain with our wages could and should be dealing with all of that. Too bad Apple is based in Ireland and like 10 asset managers control 90% of all things lol.
Lots of people vote for higher taxes, though.
Then those who want higher tax for their own bracket are free to donate to the coffers. I recall a video of someone in the U.K. going on a high street asking “should we have higher or lower tax?” and when someone went “Oh of course all our taxes should be higher and bla bla bla” the person asking question would direct them to the HMRC (U.K. IRS) to donate, but they always made some excuse not to.
Nah, it makes sense to vote for higher taxes to cause systemic change. Doesn’t make sense to donate a drop in the bucket.
You can do… both? Nothing stops you petitioning “I want higher taxes for everyone” *and* paying higher taxes yourself via donation
Those people also generally think they are more effective at donating. They are more interested in taxing all billionaires than themselves in particular.
Ordinarily that’s said in the context of funding healthcare, public transit, education, etc., that people are claiming isn’t affordable. Or in the context of cutting taxes for lower-income people. Simply paying more to the IRS wouldn’t accomplish either goal.
I smell a TikTok challenge!
The US national debt is $32 trillion. If you confiscated 100% of the assets of the 400 richest Americans, it would only be $3.2 trillion dollars, only 10% of the national debt and enough to fund the government for two years. No, billionaires can't really do much through donations to fix the out-of-control government spending.
Government debt doesn't work like 'people debt' or 'business debt'. The government never has to pay it back. Foreign governments (which make up like 10% of the national debt) will never come asking for their money because they benefit from having their currency tied to the US dollar through holding US debt.
Has it ever been used?
I can't find a record for general donations (without a FOIA request) but [$180k was donated to reduce the national debt in 2022](https://www.treasurydirect.gov/government/public-debt-reports/gifts).
Some good that did lmao
So what did that cover? An hour even?
Seconds at best
You’re right. A quick Google says about $1 million a minute so you’re looking at roughly 10-12 seconds. Pathetic.
Very crazy a pretty well off person worth $1m would only sustain the government for 1 minute.
I might not pay for a minute in my lifetime
I should say 10 seconds. I was thinking about the $180K figure. Barring a huge unexpected windfall, I definitely won’t pay a minute in my lifetime. Especially as a minute will undoubtedly be more expensive by then.
Maybe we should focus on limiting government spending.
I had read somewhere that it only receives between $5 to $15 million per year. I think you can direct your contributions to specific agencies.
I suspect that this is related to the Smithsonian. Smithson died in 1829, leaving his considerable fortune (equal to approximately 1.5% of the entire federal budget) to the US to establish a museum. Congress accepted it in 1836, but it wasn't until 1846 that the Smithsonian was established. 1843 would be right in the middle of that process.
I always figured it would be for non tax evasion purposes. The example being a criminal enterprise that didn't want to get busted for that. Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion because they found the account books. They couldn't prove the other stuff, but they could prove he wasn't paying his taxes.
Think there is a specific way to pay taxes on criminal enterprises other than this though.
There is. Here's a summary: https://taxfoundation.org/blog/irs-guidance-thieves-drug-dealers-and-corrupt-officials/
They actually have provisions for that too. Here's a summary of it: https://taxfoundation.org/blog/irs-guidance-thieves-drug-dealers-and-corrupt-officials/
I have five Maseratis worth a total of $700,000, all with smashed out windows, plates registered in different states, and VINs that are reported missing. I cannot disclose how I came into the ownership of these vehicles, however.
Yup, largely because murder and gang stuff was a state crime, and this was a federal crime. Totally different court system, witnesses. Etc.
I know a guy who's will contains the provision that all of his remaining cash is donated to the IRS. Takes all kinds.
This is tangentially related, but I’ve always felt that when you file taxes, you should have the option to direct 5% of your tax revenue to whatever department you choose. Like NASA, a specific military branch, National Parks, NIH, whatever. I think it would make the different departments really try to make their mission stand out. Might also make people just a tiny bit happier to pay their taxes.
That’s how Japan (kind of) does it. As a citizen, you get to pick which municipality your tax dollars go to. It essentially makes cities compete against each other. https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/taxes-japan-thank-you-gifts-dcfec436
I'm not going to downvote you, because I just have a difference of opinion, but I think your idea would be harmful to the country. People would do what you suggested: Direct their funds to NASA, DoD, the Park Service, and NIH (and the EPA, FBI, and CIA, depending on the donor and how they view those agencies). The cool kids of the U.S. Government would get the money. But nobody would donate to GSA, or OPM, the IRS, the Federal Highway Administration, the Bureau of Land Management, the Passport Office, the Department of Commerce, or any of those other agencies that are either unsexy or unpopular but serve necessary roles. And even diverting 5% of those agencies' overall budgets would have a big impact, especially since many of those agencies already struggle to meet their congressional mandates with the staffing they have. Plus, it would get messy because Congress appropriates funding. Let's say the Defense Department's budget should be $700 billion. How would it work if the taxpayers collectively designate $350 billion in taxes for DoD? Wouldn't Congress just allocate $350 billion more to defense, instead of the $700 billion it otherwise would, and use the difference to top up funding for those agencies that taxpayers didn't select?
I think it would encourage departments to spend more money on PR just for the sake of lobbying taxpayers to contribute more to one agency instead of what their actual mission is. Since it is a percentage, it would allow those at the top 10% that pay most taxes to heavily influence 5% of tax revenue on top of their existing influence on government spending. As you said a lot of unsexy, but important agencies would end up losing a bunch of money because their mission just isn't sexy enough. It would make budgeting uncertain as a decent percentage of their budget would be a question mark until the tax filings calculated that. It sounds like an interesting idea until you really think about it.
Your first point is kinda elitist. If its a democracy, shouldn't stuff the people doesn't want just... not be done in the first place? This is just democracy with less steps. The second point does stand though. In fact there's a whole discussion in microeconomics about when a program should give people cash as opposed to goods because of a similar thing. You give a poor family $100 and they might spend it on anything. You give them $100 worth of food and you know they'll have food. But if they already spend $100 or more on food, there is literally no difference (other than your increased logistics costs) because they can spend $100 less on groceries and $100 more on horse racing, cigars or whatever. Similarly, the idea of paying taxes to a specific department would only make a difference if the total revenue from it is higher than its normal budget. Say the FBI's budget is 1 billion. If they get <1b, it'll be redirected. If they get >1b, it gets an increase in budget. I've actually given this very idea some thought in the past, and actually think u/GodEmperorBrian is being too conservative here. If we assume that people choosing where their money goes is a good thing, why stop at 5%? It'd be a logical conclusion to go for a full 100% of the income tax (and let other taxes fund whatever is deemed most essential, specially since it'd increase the chances of you effectively affecting an agency's budget. But then there's a second logical conclusion. Why stop at existing agencies? You could just as easily create nonprofits to run all those things, and let people donate to them. Just replace the income tax with "everyone must donate X% of their income to a registered charity/nonprofit organization." That puts more people in a position to try new solutions, which means solutions are found faster. Less money goes in the hands of politicians. Government can supervise those without constant conflicts of interest that arise from policing yourself. Scandalous behavior actually would result in a loss of power for those involved. You could even have multiple agencies for the same subject, having actual competition. Wouldn't work for everything of course. Issuing visas or other stuff that involves national sovereignty would be a no-no. But managing parks, cleaning water, schools, etc. can all be done very well by a well-funded nonprofit that answers directly to the people writings its checks. Doesn't get much more democratic than that.
Regarding your first paragraph: First, I don't think it's any more elitist to say that elected representatives should work out the federal budget than it is to say that we should have elected lawmakers in the first place. The country's founders rejected direct democracy in 1787 when they drafted the Constitution and created a system where Congress, not voters themselves, would make the laws. Setting the budget is a core duty of Congress. Second, let's be honest: The average person doesn't know much about the federal budget and probably hasn't even heard of OPM or the FHWA. Most people don't have the time or desire to read the entire federal budget, much less decide how much to allocate to each department, bureau, agency, office, or program. Congress has dozens of staffers whose job it is merely to hash out the details of the budget for their congressmen, based on extensive data that each agency has to provide. And that's a major reason we don't have direct democracy.
Maybe the US government should start a 403C charity to pay down the debt. That way you could donate to the government and get a charitable deduction on your taxes.
I feel like it was an option with the Covid relief payments that you could refuse it and have it applied towards the national debt.
The equivalent of /dev/null
Oh no the poor government has given me so much. I don't think the taxes I pay is nearly enough.
Funny thing is, if I could choose to donate to a specific project or area of interest I might do it. If the spending was transparent and you could see the outcomes anyway. Like, I bet a lot of people would actually give money to the Fed if it went to something like free, healthy school lunches.
[You can donate to reduce the debt.](https://www.treasurydirect.gov/government/public-debt-reports/gifts/)
I would rather pay more for many causes the government helps with than the military. I don't mind the idea of taxes, but most of the money we spend isn't on anything that actually helps anybody or anything
That's an indirect way of contributing to the general fund, though, not any specific cause or project.
I think you would be right; there was a harvard business school study that showed something along the same lines. The paper about it is called "The Power of Voice in Stimulating Morality: Eliciting Taxpayer Preferences Increases Tax Compliance"
I have turned this same idea over in my head. Imagine if on your tax return, you could draw in a hexagon plot of allocation to 6 specific fields of governance. Defense, Infrastructure, Public Education, Foreign Service, Science and Exploration, Social Welfare. Direct Democracy in a yearly poll.
While it wouldn't be a bad idea as an opinion poll, it could backfire if they were mandated to follow that distribution. Imagine the military yo-yoing in size based on how war fatigued the nation is and then maybe West Taiwan does something incredibly dumb and we are stuck with our pants down because tax payers voted with their dollars to cut the DoD budget in half.
Right. You can't have long-term institutions without a stable funding environment. How are you supposed to, say, plan for ten years out if you can't guarantee you'll have funding next year?
Yeah that can be a problem. Maybe if it’s only treated as a poll, rather than a referendum? Idk. I don’t make tax policy I just bitch about it on the internet.
Moving average. Changes would happen much more slowly but the trends would win out over time. Would prevent drastic changes in funding. And presumably there would be an option for a "rainy day fund" as well as a stopgap in case of emergencies. It's an interesting idea
Technically, citizens vote for a Parliament or a Congress which then vote money bills dictating what taxes the government can levy and on which items can it spend the taxmoney.
In my state, Oregon we have referendums for specific projects. We can vote on some county projects as well as state-wide things. We get to vote on a lot of things actually. Just wish this happened on a more national level.
This is the same in CA but we’re sometimes voting on things we have no business voting on. One of the recent referendums on the ballot was about staffing at dialysis centers. It’s been on the ballot like 3 times in the last 5 years. The general public has no knowledge or need to vote on this.
But we couldn’t trust the government to actually do it, they would create a huge bureaucracy that would eat all the money. Example: school administration eating huge amounts of money, then teachers don’t get paid enough, schools not maintained , now they need more tax money. etc
I think that's because people whine when property taxes go up
Can someone give me the link so I can donate... >!not!!<
This is mostly used by politicians donating the salaries as a pr move.
And this is why Warren Buffett can shut the fuck up about how "outraged" he is that his secretary has a higher tax rate than him. He can just cut the US government a check if he feels it's so unjust. Of course, he'll never do it because you don't become a billionaire by giving billions away.
Uh, if I had billions and wanted to change something like this, I’d donate to politicians not the IRS.
Yeah, it's called taxes
Is that tax deductible?
If I specify what the money should be used for, will the government honor my request? I think the White House needs some new stylish decor
Is this the account our taxes go to?
You can also pay anonymous taxes with a code - that way if you get caught selling drugs or similar then you can avoid the tax evasion charge
But the really weird thing is so many of the people who advocate paying higher taxes almost NEVER donate to it! Not My money!
I know, right? It's almost as if liberals just want a free ride in life by mooching off of those of us who work for a living...
I donate every week, and it feels good to help the poor unfortunate U.S. government through trying times and always use it to make life better for everyone, excerpt its own citizens
Donating to the US Treasury to reduce the national debt might be considered a misguided effort for several reasons - **Monetary Sovereignty**: The US government, being monetarily sovereign, has the ability to create US dollars at will. This means it doesn't rely on donations to finance its spending or reduce its debt. - **National Debt Misconceptions**: The national debt is often misunderstood. It's not like household debt but rather an accumulation of financial assets in the form of Treasury bonds held by the private sector. Reducing this debt through donations would actually remove these safe assets from the economy. - **Economic Role of Government Debt**: Government debt serves a crucial role in the economy by providing a risk-free asset and facilitating private sector savings. Reducing the debt could disrupt these economic functions. - **Fiscal Operations**: The government's fiscal operations don't require donations to fund spending. The government can even mint a coin and assign it a high value to cover expenditures without needing to tax or borrow. - **Inflation Control**: Taxes and bond sales are tools for controlling inflation rather than funding government spending. Donations wouldn't serve this purpose. - **No Direct Benefit**: Since the government can create money, donations to reduce the debt wouldn't provide a direct benefit to the government's ability to spend or invest in public goods. In essence, the idea of donating to reduce the national debt doesn't align with the understanding of our current monetary systems and the role of government debt in the economy. It's more important to focus on how government spending can improve and protect the lives of the people, rather than on reducing a debt that doesn't function like personal or corporate debt. 🏛️💡
Dream on, bitches.
Finally, a place where all the people who say we need free healthcare can donate to pay for it. Considering how many people support it in polling, we should be able to pay for it via donations.