Republicans Make An Offer Democrats Can Easily Refuse


So here’s the latest brainstorm from the tea party wizards in the House:

Sure, that’ll work. The idea here is to fund a small handful of the most public casualties of the government shutdown as a way of easing public anger over the consequences of Republican hostage taking. Of course Democrats will be eager to help out with this. And they’ll be especially eager to do this because Republicans have made it clear that they’ll refuse to fund anything that Democrats care about:

“We’re going to start picking off those priorities that are important,” said Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), as lawmakers prepared to vote to reopen the national parks and services for veterans. “The IRS was last on the list. The EPA was right above it.”

Gosh. Why wouldn’t Democrats take Republicans up on a deal like this? They make it sound so attractive.

Just fund the government, guys. Democrats have already agreed to your spending levels. They’re not going to save you from yourselves by giving you anything more.

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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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