Former President Donald Trump recently proposed using Bitcoin or a “crypto check” to pay off the United States government’s staggering $35 trillion national debt and avert a looming debt crisis
In an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox News, the GOP’s 2024 presidential candidate praised the crypto industry and re-iterated his stance that if America does not innovate on the digital asset front, other countries will. The former president then hinted at the role Bitcoin could play in settling the US national debt:
“Who knows, maybe we’ll pay off our $35 trillion dollar [national debt], hand them a little crypto check, right? We’ll hand them a little Bitcoin and wipe away our $35 trillion.”
Trump’s statement is a nod to the power of the supply-capped asset to absorb and transmute US dollar inflation into a new system founded on sound money and blockchain technology.
Bitcoin can save the United States from the dark days ahead
As the United States government continues to devalue the dollar by printing more currency to service previous outstanding debts, the price of Bitcoin continues to rise relative to the fiat currency.
To put the ever-growing $35 trillion national debt into perspective, it took roughly 200 years for the US national debt to cross the $1 trillion mark. Today, that same amount is being added to the US national debt approximately every three months due to deficit spending.
During the month of June, roughly 76% of all income tax revenue went to pay the interest on that debt, making interest payments one of the highest line items in the US fiscal budget.
Bitcoin can solve this problem by slowly siphoning the value from the current US dollar system into the supply-capped digital asset, averting a full-blown currency collapse reminiscent of the Weimar Republic in the early 20th Century. As presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently stated in an interview with Cointelegraph, establishing a Bitcoin reserve could help the government pay off its national debt as the underlying BTC continues to appreciate in value.
Senator Cynthia Lummis recently introduced a bill to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve in the United States to counteract the harmful effects of rampant monetary printing and preserve the financial dominance of the United States in global markets and trade.
The Wyoming Senator has set a goal for the United States Treasury to acquire 5% of Bitcoin’s total supply, holding the scarce decentralized asset for at least 20 years as a bulwark against monetary devaluation by the central bank and poor fiscal policy.