Charts of the Day: Time to Hit the Fiscal Reset

Membership ticker

Right now is no time to come up short.

It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where the Big Lie is called a Big Lie, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we urgently need to raise about 400,000 by Thursday, June 30, to finish our fiscal year on track and give it everything we possibly can. Please help us get there with a donation if you can right now.

$1,150,000

$1,350,000

Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

Facts matter: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter. Support our nonprofit reporting. Subscribe to our print magazine.

You’ve seen versions of these charts before, but Michael Linden of CAP has now updated them. They send a pretty clear message: Over the past two years, the federal deficit has been slashed by about $2.5 trillion, mostly via spending cuts. As a result, our medium-term deficit picture has brightened considerably.

And now? It’s time to stop. The economy is still fragile, austerity has failed utterly in Europe, and we don’t need any more of it here. For now, at least, a deficit of around 3 percent of GDP is, if anything, too low. It’s time to hit the reset button. The full report is here.