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Today is budget day, so we’re going to be hearing a lot about the budget deficit. Probably from me, too. But here’s really all you need to know:

80% of the federal budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Pentagon, and interest on the national debt. So where are we trying to find cuts? The other 20%, naturally.

This is doomed to failure, and everyone knows it. But we’ll continue with the kabuki show anyway.

Also this: if we simply let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2012 — all of them — and went back to the Clinton tax rates of the 90s, our medium-term deficit problem would be reduced to 3% of GDP in a stroke. That’s pretty manageable. And we could do it, too: it’s not as if the 90s were a hellscape of jackbooted IRS thugs confiscating all your money and driving the economy into the ditch, after all.

Beyond that, we should do something sensible about reining in the growth of Social Security and Medicare.

In other words, the things we should do are precisely the things that are completely off the table. This is called “listening to the will of the people.” Welcome to America.

UPDATE: Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would reduce the deficit substantially, but not make it “nearly vanish.” I’ve corrected the text to make it more accurate.

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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.

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