Conservatives Part Ways on Sequester Cuts

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The American Conservative Union thinks the federal government spends too much. Still, there are business lobbies out there that are unhappy with some of the sequester cuts, and that represents a fundraising opportunity. So to the dismay of tea partiers everywhere, the ACU is now pitching a new program to defense and transportation lobbyists, called the American Strength Program, to fight cuts in programs these lobbyists support. That’s not the official pitch, of course. The official pitch is that defense and roadbuilding are explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, so constitutional conservatives should be happy to shovel as much money as possible into those areas.

Anything for a buck, I guess. Nick Confessore has the full story here. On the bright side, at least the ACU is planning to be discreet about the whole thing.

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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.

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