May 19, 2010

Greenspan the Partisan Crank

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I have strong memories of Alan Greenspan’s bizarro justification in 2001 for insisting that we stop running federal budget surpluses. It was convoluted, it didn’t make sense, and it was pretty obvious partisan hackery. But I confess that either I’ve forgotten, or I never quite realized, just how eccentric it really was. “I’ve seen theories this convoluted and loopy before,” says Jon Chait, after reminding us of Greenspan’s concluding flourish, “But they’ve usually been scrawled in long-hand by random cranks who mail letters to magazines.” No kidding.

UPDATE: Just out curiosity, is there anyone around today who actually defends Greenspan’s position back then? Maybe Larry Kudlow or Donald Luskin? Anyone?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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