July 20, 2011

$1 Trillion vs. $1 Trillion

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The “Gang of Six” plan unveiled yesterday offers $1 trillion in new revenue as part of its deficit-reduction package. However, CBPP’s Robert Greenstein explains that this is not the same thing as the $1 trillion in new revenue from the previous grand bargain that House Speaker John Boehner walked away from. The grand bargain plan assumed that the Bush tax cuts for the rich would be made permanent (thus reducing revenue by $700 billion) and then added $1 trillion on top of that, for a net total of $300 billion in new revenue. The Gang of Six plan assumes the Bush tax cuts for the rich are allowed to expire and then adds $1 trillion more, for a net total that’s genuinely $1 trillion.

In other words, regardless of any legerdemain with CBO scoring, the Gang of Six plan raises taxes way more than the plan Boehner rejected because his conference was dead set against it. And that’s in addition to the fact that it’s obviously far too complex to be put into legislative language, scored, and moved through Congress in less than two weeks. So explain to me again why everyone was so excited about this?

I suppose one advantage of the G6 plan is that it makes only a few cuts immediately and basically punts everything else into the future, including the tax hikes. And since conservatives, in addition to being anti-tax, are also convinced that spending cuts promised for the future are just a sham, maybe they figure that tax hikes promised for the future are also a sham. So the G6 plan allows them to vote for kicking the can down the road without any intention of ever voting for the future tax hikes.

Or something. Frankly, I’m not really sure what’s going on anymore and I’m not sure anyone else is either. For now, I’m going to stick with my guess that we’ll blow by the August 2nd deadline, markets will go nuts, and we’ll end up with some kind of debt ceiling increase by August 7th. We’ll see.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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