GOODY TWO SHOES: Payback’s A Bitch
House members can donate a portion of their salaries to pay down the national debt, but few opt to do so, reports The Washington Post:
Last year, records show, only two House members donated a “Gift to the United States for Reduction of Public Debt” in every fiscal quarter. Each time, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) gave $414.39, and Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) gave $2,196. …
The only other congressman to donate toward the debt in 2010 was Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo (R-N.J.). He gave $4,782 in the first quarter and nothing thereafter. …
The year’s donations from the House totaled $15,233.56. They were given to the federal Bureau of the Public Debt. There, the money was lumped together with gifts from the public: bequests from the dead, pennies from schoolchildren, checks from all over.
Despite the gift’s name, the money actually doesn’t go to pay back the nation’s creditors.
Instead, it is given to the General Fund, which pays for whatever new things the government wants to buy. The logic is that this lowers the debt, indirectly, by reducing what has to be borrowed anew. …
Last year, Americans - elected and unelected - gave $2.8 million. That kept the debt from growing … for 57 seconds. …
Walz said he was disappointed to learn that, because of the way the program works, his money wouldn’t cash out a single one of America’s IOUs.
“It would have made me feel good to see them buy back something with it,” Walz said. “You know, a piece of a bond, or something.”
Comments