February 16, 2016

Ted Cruz Is New Winner in Richie Rich Tax Contest

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Hooray! The Tax Policy Center has analyzed Ted Cruz’s tax plan, which means we now have data for all of the top four Republican candidates: Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Cruz. Click the links for details. Or just look at the charts below for the nickel summary.

Folks, Ted Cruz is killing it. The other guys are touting tax plans that give paltry income gains to the middle class and big income gains to the rich. Cruz gives the usual paltry sop to the middle class, but incomes of the rich would skyrocket 26 percent under his plan. 26 percent! That’s what I call a tax plan.

Trump is still the winner in the budget-busting contest, but Cruz is close. His plan would increase the deficit $8.6 trillion over ten years. Overall, I have to say that Cruz is bringing his A game. If you calculate his Richie Rich Index™—percentage deficit increase plus percentage income increase for the rich—Cruz clocks in with a score of 87.4, beating out Trump by a hair. Congratulations, Ted.

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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.

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