Public Service Announcement: Sometimes a Higher Deficit is Good. Like, For Example, Right Now.

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More polling fun: Business Insider conducted an internet survey that asked people what would happen to the deficit if we go over the fiscal cliff. Nearly half thought the deficit would increase. The correct answer, of course, is that the fiscal cliff involves tax increases and spending cuts, which would dramatically reduce the deficit.

My initial reaction to this was pretty meh. I figure most people have only a vague idea what the fiscal cliff is, but they know it’s bad. They also think that deficits are bad. Ergo, the fiscal cliff must produce higher deficits. This is wrong, but pretty understandable for the large majority of the population that doesn’t really follow this stuff closely.

But Paul Krugman points out a related but different interpretation:

In a way, I understand this: the VSPs have been pounding the drum over and over again about how deficits are bad, evil; now they are warning about a fiscal something-or-other, so how are people supposed to know that they’re suddenly worried that we’ll reduce the deficit too much?

Right. Given the current level of discourse, it’s inconceivable to a lot of people that reducing the deficit could be bad. That being the case, it’s inconceivable that anything that would cause a deficit reduction could be bad. Therefore the fiscal cliff must not do that. It must cause a deficit increase.

This makes perfect sense even if you do follow this stuff fairly closely. As long as the media continues to treat the federal deficit as a self-evident apocalypse, what else would most people think?

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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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