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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.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

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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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