Covering Uncle Sam’s debt

My hat goes off to them.
I speak of the wonderful people who give their own money to Washington in hopes of reducing the national debt.
Since 1961, the U.S. Treasury Department has accepted these “gifts” — though by law, they can’t be used to pay down the total debt. They can only reduce how much the government needs to borrow during the year the gift is received.
Donations peaked in 2012, topping $3 million, but by 2022 they had plunged to just $180,300 — a 94% drop in a decade.
People willing to sacrifice their hard-earned money for national debt relief are vanishing — and who can blame them with our $37 trillion debt?
There was a bright spot last month: The federal government posted a rare $27 billion surplus — largely due to a $20 billion year-over-year surge in tariff collections.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency targeted big savings, but independent estimates say the result is closer to a $20 billion reduction in annual spending.
The Trump-backed Big Beautiful Bill included $1.2 trillion in spending reductions. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it would reduce the projected 2025 deficit by about $300 billion compared to President Joe Biden’s plan.
Still, the deficit will clock in at roughly $1.6 trillion for the fiscal year — and Trump’s plan will still add more than $3 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years.
That debt is largely caused by mandatory entitlements — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — that already consume more than 60% of the budget and are projected to keep rising as Baby Boomers retire, live longer and as health care costs explode.
Politicians in both parties lack the will to tackle that massive challenge.
It makes sense, then, that fewer people see any reason to gift their money to the federal government.
Yet some still do.
A representative at the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service told me the bureau keeps no records of the people who donate, but she did recall some memorable donors.

There was one man who mailed in $10 to $20 every payday for years — no note, no explanation, just quiet consistency.
One woman sent in a small money order each month, purchased from her local convenience store.
One teacher collected dimes and nickels in a large jar after teaching her students about the debt in her civics class. She mailed in their contributions.
Others simply signed over their tax refunds.
The largest gift came in 1994: $12 million, sent anonymously.
Are these gifts symbolic? Of course.
Even if there was no new borrowing or interest on our current debt — and even if an annual $12 million gift was permitted to pay the debt down — it would still take more than 3,083 years to pay off $37 trillion.
Here’s what’s worse: While the debt keeps growing, the cost to service it also soars.
The annual federal budget is about $7 trillion. About $1 trillion of that is now required just to service the interest on the $37 trillion we owe — that’s more than the government spends on either national defense or Medicaid.
These gifts from citizens say something — more than mere generosity.
They’re not just acts of generosity — they’re acts of defiance.
In the face of runaway deficits and leaders who promise more of everything with no plan to pay for it, these incredible donors quietly push back.
As I said, my hat goes off to them.

Copyright 2025 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.