Our tax returns have a field at the bottom where you can offer to do just that with your tax refund. I suspect it costs them more in ink than the value of any takers.
Always seemed like a “nonono, I didn’t mean to pay down the debt with my money!” kinda thing.
“Ontario opportunities fund
You can help reduce Ontario's debt by completing this area to donate some or all of your 2022 tax refund to the Ontario opportunities fund. Please see the provincial pages for details. ”
Unless there is default, there’s no reason for the government to not to keep accumulating debt.
The issue is an inability to budget. If we doubled tax revenue, we would double spending and increase the deficit further.
And the problem is tax cuts. Decreasing revenue without decreasing spending leads to a larger deficit. I can help you with the math if you need it. The ballooning (pre-Covid) deficit during the Trump administration can be traced directly to tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Also, some of the above are paid by both employer and employee, which is an accounting trick to make the taxpayer think he/she is paying less.
So I think your point "nonono, I didn’t mean to pay down the debt with my money!" is moot.
Government money also tends to raise all ships^H^H^H^H^Hprices, so many of the social welfare programs - tuition and home buying loans and assistance, for example - have had the effect of raising prices to the point that most people couldn’t afford them without that assistance. That seems like a good indicator that the program has lost its purpose and should be scrapped for a new idea. Getting rid of those would be immediately deflationary for several sectors (good, imho).
As someone on the hook for $116k in deficit, I’d be much happier to direct my tax dollars to eliminating debt and interest payments and reducing inflation than a great deal of what public money is being spent on.