September 14, 2012

Quote of the Day: Romney Still Not Making Sense on Taxes

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From Mitt Romney, explaining his tax plan:

So number one, [] don’t raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don’t reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today.

Hold on. The top 5% will pay the same share of taxes they pay today. But that means the bottom 95% will also pay the same share they pay today. Right? That’s just arithmetic.

So everyone will pay the same share of taxes they pay today. But we’re going to lower taxes on the bottom 95%. So that means we have to lower taxes on the top 5% too. That’s the only way to keep their shares the same.

In other words, Romney is going to lower everyone’s taxes. Not just tax rates, actual taxes. And yet, his plan is going to be revenue neutral. How? Most likely it has something to do with Romney’s tax cuts creating new incentives that will supercharge the economy blah blah blah.

I guess believers gotta believe, but if you believe a word of this, you’re the kind of mark who’d still fall for the wire scam even after seeing The Sting a dozen times on late-night cable. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.  After all, it’s been less than ten years since George W. Bush ran the same swindle, and we all remember how that panned out, don’t we?

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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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