Fact Check: The Trump Era Has Been a Gold Mine for Drug Companies

Dean Baker is one of the few lonely folks who continues to hold out hope that the truth matters in our fallen age. I’m still with him, despite the abundant evidence that we’re both wrong, so here he is factchecking Donald Trump’s claim that he’s tough on drug companies and has cut prescription drug prices bigly. You will be unsurprised to know that the data shows otherwise. My added value in this is that I draw better charts than Dean, so here’s the growth in spending on prescription drugs over the past few years:

Even in an era of low inflation, we are being forced to pay more and more for prescription drugs. Donald Trump has done absolutely nothing to rein this in.

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A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again—any amount today.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

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