The Deficit

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Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei have a sexed-up big-picture story in today’s Politico on the Obama administration’s plans for cutting the federal deficit. The gist is that the Obama team is going to spend 2010 focusing on slashing the deficit—so much so that the President will focus his State of the Union address in January on the subject. The problem is that most economists agree that when the economy is in recession it needs more spending, not less. So cutting the deficit could be counterproductive, especially if it further depresses the economy and further reduces tax revenues. At the same time, the deficit is an illustration of a very serious problem, as Doug Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, explained this week:

The country faces a fundamental disconnect between the services the people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues that people are willing to send to the government to finance those services.

The difficulty for the Obama administration lies in the contradiction between the need for deficit spending to stimulate the economy and the unsustainability of deficit spending. The national debt is already at a historically high level as a percentage of GDP, leaving Obama with less room for countercyclical deficit spending than he would otherwise have. It’s a bad time to borrow, but it’s also a bad time not to borrow. The profligacy of 2001-2008 has put the Obama team in a really tough place.

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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.

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