February 17, 2010

GOPers Top Pork List

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Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that regularly decries government spending, has released a database of the $15.9 billion in earmarks—those special projects slipped into the budget by legislators without votes—for fiscal year 2010. And the group has tagged the top porkers in the Senate and the House: Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young of Florida. Both are Republicans, and each is the senior GOPer on the defense appropriations subcommittee of his chamber. Cochran cooked up $500 million in bacon, with 242 earmarks; Young, $90.45 million, with 41 earmarks. They really show that the GOP is the party of spending discipline. Will Sen. John McCain send out a tweet denouncing them?

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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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