Deficit Plan #2 Hits the Street

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I imagine I’ll still be asleep when Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin announce their version of a deficit reduction plan on Wednesday morning, but their op-ed in the Washington Post sure makes it sound awfully similar to the Simpson-Bowles plan. That’s no surprise, I guess, since there are only just so many ways to skin this particular cat. Short version: Cut tax rates and eliminate most deductions and credits. No carbon tax, no VAT, no financial transaction tax. Freeze domestic and military discretionary spending for several years at 2011 levels, which amounts to a gradual cut of about $100 million on each side, and then cap future growth. Balance Social Security by raising the earnings cap, cutting benefits for high earners, and changing the COLA calculation. Control healthcare costs by phasing out the tax exclusion for employer-provided health care and reforming medical malpractice laws.

A few things are different. They make a point of phasing in their plan gradually beginning in 2012 so it doesn’t interfere with the current economic recovery. There’s a one-year payroll tax holiday for 2011 to stimulate the economy. They raise some revenue via a 6.5% “debt-reduction sales tax,” whatever that is. They don’t increase the retirement age for Social Security. And they address the health costs tied to rising obesity by imposing a tax on high-calorie sodas. Seriously.

More later, I’m sure. Like it or not, it’s deficit season in Washington D.C. Resistance is futile.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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