The Treasury Department just told Congress that the government needs to increase the $8.2 trillion debt by $781 billion to meet expenses. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is apparently planning on bringing this matter up on March 17th, just before a long weekend recess in order to avoid a lengthy debate. Great. As if $8.2 trillion isn’t bad enough. So what can we do?

If you’re looking for a creative solution, then you’ve come to the wrong place… Instead, I’m going to give the answer in brute force terms…

According to Frequently Asked Question #4.2 on Bureau of Public Debt web site, you can help reduce the debt by simply writing a check, as follows:

(1) Make your check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt,
(2) In the memo section of the check, notate Gift to reduce Debt Held by the Public, and
(3) Mail the check to:

ATTN DEPT G
BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT
P O BOX 2188
PARKERSBURG, WV 26106-2188

So how much should you contribute? Based on the July 2005 estimate of 295,734,134 people in the United States, each individual share of the $8.2 trillion debt stands at $27,728. That means that my family would have to come up with just over $166,000 to pay down our share. But just think… If we all dug deep we could be out of debt tomorrow.

Oh, and according to my calculations, the current national debt weighs in at a hefty 8.2 million metric tons (or a little over 9 million US tons).