National debt inspires a patriotic corps of individual donors - latimes.com

Atanacio Garcia isn't waiting for Washington to reduce the national debt.

The 84-year-old retired postal worker from San Antonio, a man of simple means and a simple credo, donates $50 a month from his pension, plus whatever he makes from collecting aluminum cans in his neighborhood, to reduce Uncle Sam's IOU.

I'm a believer in our country," said Garcia, an Army veteran who has promised that he will contribute "until the debt is paid off or until I die."

Garcia, a father of five who has lived in the same two-bedroom home for decades, is among hundreds of public-spirited Americans who have sent money, from pocket change to million-dollar checks, to the federal Bureau of Public Debt at P.O. Box 2188 in Parkersburg, W.Va.

Since President Kennedy signed legislation 50 years ago setting up the little-known program that accepts donations to pay down the debt, about $83 million has been collected, including $2,440.80 from Garcia.

While Congress generates widespread public disgust with its hyper-partisan fights over reducing the national debt — which this month surpassed $15 trillion —this tiny corps of debt-busters has quietly found a way to take a micro-stab at the problem, motivated by a sense of patriotism, not politics.