If you have extra money, and want to help pay down the enormous national debt, an under-the-radar law from 1961 lets you do just that.  The federal government will accept contributions that are directly applied to government debt--which, of course, are tax deductible. 

On average, most donations are less than $100, though there have been a few substantially large contributions since the law was enacted.  According to CNN Money, the largest such gift occurred in 1992, in the amount of $3.5 million. 

So far, total contributions for 2009 are slightly over $3 million.  Though this number is significantly higher than any yearly total in the last 10 years, it pales in comparison to total donations in 1994, which were just shy of $21 million.

While every little donation does help, the contributions are not doing much to really reduce the amount of debt.  “We might have to finance a tiny bit less that week,” Mckayla Braden, a spokesperson for the Bureau of the Public Debt, said to CNN Money.

Of the contributions received, most come from a will or estate after someone has passed away.  “Usually someone dies and leaves a gift. And many contribute regularly,” Braden said, with the government reportedly averaging five donations a week.  Sometimes a larger contribution will be paid from an estate over a set number of years.

Those amongst the living who are interested in donating will soon have an easier time doing so. The Treasury currently has plans to set up an online donation system.  “We are going to make it very easy in the future to make gifts to reduce the public debt through PayPal on a regular basis,” Braden said.

Our Take

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks this is ridiculous.  Of 17,000 people who responded to a CNN Money poll asking if they would donate to the government to relieve national debt, a whopping 81 percent picked “You’ve got to be kidding” as their response.

The government already gets thousands of dollars in our tax money each year.  They should be more responsible with what they do with our tax dollars, instead of begging for more hard-earned money.  Proper budgeting and cutting of useless programs will be necessary to finally balance the budget.