Satire

Paying Down America’s National Debt With Venmo

What the U.S. national debt looks like when you imagine it as a shared dinner bill.

Photo by Tech Daily on Unsplash

Living in the UK and having an interest in international politics, watching U.S. politics can feel like tuning into the latest Netflix series. Big, flashy, fast-moving, and often not entirely believable.

There are times when I nearly laugh out loud on public transport: “American National debt has breached $36 trillion”, read The Guardian headline recently.

I don’t mean to be apathetic towards our American friends’ financial commitments, but to put that headline in context — $36 TRILLION?! It’s like a financial Godzilla, looming over the cityscape of the economy, ready to wreak havoc.

Then it hit me: what if Americans just Venmo’d the Treasury to pay it off?

OK, I know that’s ridiculous. But this is the country that already Venmo’s its brunch bills and dog-sitting fees, right? Is splitting a trillion-dollar deficit any different?

Do the sums, and the joke almost writes itself. America’s population is approximately 340 million people.

So you could get the national debt down to zero by making each American send the Treasury approximately…