“The interest on the federal debt. You don’t pay for that? Guess you don’t pay taxes smarty pants. “
Well when I pay taxes I make out the check to the US Treasury. Are you telling us that you make your check out to the Federal Reserve?
Interest on the federal debt- that’s the interest owed on Treasury bonds that Congress authorizes to finance their deficit spending.
Congress sets the debt limit. The Treasury sells bonds to finance that debt. Taxes are paid to the Treasury. The Treasury pays interest to anyone who owns a Savings Bond, a T-bill, and any other paper that you can buy from the Treasury.
Notably absent from that process is the Federal Reserve, and for good reason, because we have been paying interest on the debt since Alexander Hamilton sold the first Treasury bond in 1789 and the Fed didn’t arrive on the scene for another 124 years.
The Fed has no say in the national debt and the only interest they collect is from their own bond holdings, the same as anyone else. Well not exactly the same because they have to turn over the interest they receive to the Treasury and the rest of us get to keep ours.
The Fed doesn’t “charge interest on our money”, it would in fact be a mathematical impossibility even if they wanted to. The only interest you pay is to the Treasury. That’s why you have been writing their name on that check you send to the IRS.