Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


STIMULUS UPDATE….Jake Tapper reports that Barack Obama wants to hit the ground running, stimulus-wise:

Democratic sources tell ABC News that President-elect Obama’s transition team is working with lawmakers on Capitol Hill so that on Obama’s first day in office, Jan. 20, 2009, an economic stimulus package has passed both houses of Congress and is awaiting his signature.

And how big will the package be? The Washington Post speculates:

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), an Obama adviser, and Harvard economist Lawrence H. Summers, whom Obama has chosen to lead his White House economic team, both raised the possibility of $700 billion in new spending. Yesterday, Obama adviser and former Clinton administration Labor secretary Robert Reich and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) also called for spending in the range of $500 billion to $700 billion.

….Austan Goolsbee, a spokesman for Obama on economic issues who is in line to serve on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, yesterday acknowledged that Obama’s jobs plan will cost substantially more than the $175 billion stimulus program he proposed during the campaign. “This is as big of an economic crisis as we’ve faced in 75 years. And we’ve got to do something that’s up to the task of confronting that,” Goolsbee said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I don’t know what the exact number is, but it’s going to be a big number.”

This is a welcome sign of pragmatism from Obama’s team, but not everyone is happy. Check this out:

“Democrats can’t seem to stop trying to outbid each other — with the taxpayers’ money,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “We’re in tough economic times. Folks are hurting. But the American people know that more Washington spending isn’t the answer.”

Jeebus. No wonder Republicans have lost 50 House seats in the past two elections. There’s not even a hint that Boehner realizes we’re facing a massive financial meltdown, not just business as usual. Somebody asked him about a Democratic spending plan, so he consulted the index cards that have been implanted in his brain for the past 30 years and spit out a robotic statement decrying “Washington spending.” How out of touch can you get?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate