Spending vs. Tax Cuts: Everything You Need to Know in One Chart

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This is pretty excellent. It’s a chart, created by Paul Rosenberg at Open Left, that combines data from Moody’s Economy.com and Dean Baker’s Center for Economic Policy and Research. It shows the return on investment for different stimulus options.

stimulus_tax_cuts_spending.jpg

The takeaway? Food stamps, unemployment benefits, and infrastructure investment put the most money back into the economy for every dollar spent on them. Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy do the least. (A payroll tax holiday, which is essentially a tax break for poor people, isn’t so bad.) Job creation maps similarly.

So when conservatives tell you that FDR’s public investment programs made the depression worse and that we need to hold fast to the conservative economic principles that created the current mess, shoot them this link. Perhaps President Obama should use that snazzy new BlackBerry of his to email it to his Republican opponents in Congress.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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