America’s Chapter 11

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Batten down the hatches, mates; it’s almost over. According to a new report an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the U.S. government is bankrupt—or, at least, it will be soon. Battered by a growing budget deficit spurred by tax cuts we can’t afford and an unsustainable commitments to welfare and pension pay-outs, the authors say, the country is nearing insolvency.

So what to do? An article in The Telegraph recounts the report’s “terrifying” suggestions: “One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits.” Right… well, for those of you willing to go down with the ship, just stick tight and keep paying your share of the damage. I’ll call you from Tehran.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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