They Hate Each Other, They Really Hate Each Other

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Ezra Klein has been reading through all the fiscal cliff tick-tocks—and thank God for that, since I sure didn’t want to do it—and extracts the ten juiciest tidbits today. They’re pretty good, and you should take a look if you haven’t already had your fill of fiscal cliff posturing. Here’s #1:

From the National Journal: “The speaker’s team fell prey to overconfidence. They just didn’t believe that Obama meant what he said about raising tax rates for the wealthy….Yet when Boehner’s aides started haggling with their counterparts at the White House in the days before Thanksgiving, they ran into a wall. There would be no deal without higher tax rates on the wealthy and an extension of the debt limit, the president’s aides said. Take it or leave it. The president was willing to dive off the cliff.”

This is more important than it might seem: If the White House had agreed to raise revenue through tax reform, there’d be no way to raise revenue through tax reform in future negotiations. Because the White House raised its revenue through increasing rates, it can still raise revenue through tax reform in a future negotiation.

Ezra’s comment is important, though I imagine it cuts both ways. It’s true that if you do tax reform now, you can’t use it to raise revenue in the future. At the same time, if you raise rates now, you also can’t use that to raise revenue in the future.

Still, I guess the thinking here is that tax reform is coming, and it’s going to focus on loophole closing, not rate increases. This means it’s best to leave plenty of loopholes to close as bargaining chips.

We’ll see. Given the obvious, and very genuine, animosity that Democratic and Republican leaders all have for each other right now, it’s not clear that tax reform is very likely. These guys really, really don’t like or trust each other. The upcoming negotiations over the sequestration cuts and the debt ceiling should give us some clues about whether they can still deal with each other in any kind of professional way.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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