Great news, America! Uncle Sam maintains a website (pay.gov) where taxpayers may voluntarily contribute funds, above their actual income tax obligations, ostensibly to reduce the national debt. And to make it easier for you, they now take PayPal and Venmo. How considerate.

Making a recommendation on something I haven’t yet seen would be unprofessional, so I opened a browser tab, put the address in, and went to the site. Then I skimmed down to find the link to make donations. From there, I found the donation tab for reducing the National Debt.

According to my iPhone’s timer, my search lasted about 30 seconds, simply to get to the page where the forms are available. From finbold.com, I learned that our government over-spends its revenue (read: borrows dollars) at the rate of $62,000 per second, or $1,860,000 during my search. Had I intended to contribute, those figures would have burst my patriotic balloon. A government that overspends at that pace has no respect for its hard-working taxpayers. In return, that government gets no claim on my “extra” dollars, should I have any.

Since 1996, Americans have voluntarily ponied up about $67,300,000 to “reduce the national debt.” The government overspends that much money in 1,086 seconds, or about 18 minutes. In that context, voluntarily paying extra dollars represents an act of futility, rather than one of loyalty. In my opinion, it is money gone forever from us, unrecognized by our entire country’s taxpayers and creditors.

As a professional financial advisor and radio show host, I help clients, readers, and listeners reduce their annual tax liability through careful planning. We live in an expensive era, one in which saving dollars is a high priority. Whenever tax rules can assist our savings, we all benefit. However, most politicians do not see the world the same way we do, and are constantly trying to squeeze us, the taxpaying loyalists, for more revenue. Their time would be better applied reducing spending and slowing the growth of the National Debt.

Voluntarily paying “extra” dollars on top of already burdensome taxes and winding up with nothing to show for our generosity, has absolutely no appeal to me. Based on the paltry donations to the website over nearly 30 years, I believe that I am part of the American majority. The fruitless nature of trying to reduce a debt that increases faster than we could all donate to pay it off is patently obvious.

Don’t be fooled. When Congress presents us with a balanced annual budget, we’ll take another look. Until then, pay.gov will not see my search engine’s footprint any time soon. Plus, think of the time I am saving by not creating a PayPal or Venmo account.