September/October 2005 Issue

Off Track

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The 7/7 London bombings had a powerful impact on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress and the Bush administration have been outdoing themselves offering sound bites on mass-transit security while simultaneously doing next to nothing to improve mass-transit security. To wit:

Tax dollars spent on airline security since 9/11: $250 BILLION

Tax dollars spent on rail and subway security since 9/11: $18 BILLION

Amount requested for rail and subway security after the London transit bombing: $1.2 BILLION

Amount given: $100 MILLION

Ratio of daily rail and subway passengers to daily airline passengers: 16 TO 1

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We've never been very good at being conservative.

And usually, that serves us well in doing the ambitious, hard-hitting journalism that you turn to Mother Jones for. But it also means we can't afford to come up short when it comes to scratching together the funds it takes to keep our team firing on all cylinders, and the truth is, we finished our budgeting cycle on June 30 about $100,000 short of our online goal.

This is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell, as our namesake would tell us to do, for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability has a chance at the polls and in the press. If you value our reporting and you can right now, please help us dig out of the $100,000 hole we're starting our new budgeting cycle in with an always-needed and always-appreciated donation today.

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