How do we address the country’s massive debt, which now tops $36.5 trillion? Cutting government spending is the primary solution, but that’s easier said than done.

While DOGE is working to find and cut government waste, the reality is that the vast majority of America’s debt problem has less to do with waste than with spending programs such as Social Security ($1.4 trillion last year), Medicaid ($871 billion), Medicare ($848 billion), and defense ($892 billion). Making matters worse, last year, the U.S. paid a whopping $1 trillion in interest on the national debt.

Facing this troubling and grim reality, Donald Trump came up with an idea to generate significant revenue for the government: “Gold Cards.”

“You have a Green Card. This is a Gold Card,” Trump explained to reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million, and that’s going to give you Green Card privileges. Plus, it’s going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.”

“They’ll be wealthy,” he continued, “and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it’s going to be extremely successful. Never been done before anything like this, but it’s something that we’re going to be putting out over the next two weeks.”

Trump believes this Gold Card program, which he envisions as a replacement to the current EB-5 worker visa program, could generate as much as $5 trillion if a million are sold. “And if you sell 10 million of the cards,” he mused, “that’s a total of $50 trillion. Well, we have $35 trillion in debt.”

In other words, these Gold Cards would offer wealthy foreigners an opportunity to effectively fast-track their route to gaining U.S. citizenship. As Trump sees it, not only would they be helping to pay down the debt (assuming that’s where the money is spent), but their presence in the U.S. would boost the economy.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says the current EB-5 program was similarly conceived in 1990 to “stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors.” It allows foreigners to invest $900,000 to $1.8 million in projects within the U.S. while requiring them to create at least 10 jobs. These investors, along with the family members, receive Green Cards in return. The current program is limited to 10,000 visas annually.

The EB-5 program “was full of nonsense, make-believe, and fraud, and it was a way to get a green card that was low price,” argues Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “So, the president said, rather than having this sort of ridiculous EB-5 program, we’re going to end the EB-5 program. We’re going to replace it with the Trump Gold Card.”

Lutnick was quick to note that wealthy applicants will “have to go through vetting, of course, to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens.”

Given that the EB-5 program already exists, this idea is not as far-fetched as you might think. However, there is one significant caveat: How many non-Americans have $5 million to spend on acquiring a Gold Card? The truth is the U.S. already has the vast majority of millionaires in the world, and the best estimate for the number of wealthy foreigners who could actually afford to drop $5 million on a Gold Card tops out at around two million.

Even if all two million purchased a Gold Card, the total revenue would be $10 trillion. To be sure, that would take a sizable chunk out of the national debt, but this is the best-case scenario — and it assumes that money wouldn’t be otherwise spent. Of course, not everyone with that much disposable income will seek a Gold Card. Furthermore, not everyone who applies will pass muster.

The Gold Card seems to offer an opportunity for revenue generation, but it remains to be seen if it will be significant.