How Many Concerts Would Taylor Swift Have to Perform to Pay Off One Day’s Interest on the Debt?

Katrina Trinko /

 

If Taylor Swift decided she’d help Uncle Sam with some of those interest payments on our $18.1 trillion national debt, she’d have to do a lot of concerts.

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And what if famous boxer Floyd Mayweather wanted to pay off our whole debt? Well, let’s hope he knows the secret for how to live a few centuries.

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What if Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers decided he wanted to help out and pay off some of the debt?

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OK, OK, but let’s say some other rich folks got in the game. Let’s look at Bill Gates, the world’s richest person. Would he have close to enough?

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Oh. OK, maybe not.

So surely since we’re in so much debt, we’re at least making sure we’re not adding to that debt at a significant rate, right?

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Yeah, actually, we’re adding to it really fast.

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And if we keep up with this … the long-term outlook isn’t great.

 

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But the newest budget deal, pushed by President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, just boosts the debt limit by $1.5 trillion. And it does so by putting off savings until further in the future.

 

Sources: Congressional Budget Office and Heritage Foundation calculations. (Chart: John Fleming/The Heritage Foundation)

Sources: Congressional Budget Office and Heritage Foundation calculations. (Chart: John Fleming/The Heritage Foundation)

So I guess we’re banking on Taylor Swift deciding some day she’s a workaholic … and only working to help pay off the interest of the national debt.

This article has been corrected to reflect how much the proposed increase would make the national debt.