How Likely Is a Budget Deal Later This Year?


My congressman, John Campbell, has been sending out daily emails during the budget showdown, and today’s wrap-up shows an admirable grip on reality:

The mainstream media (MSM) would have you believe that this was a “bipartisan agreement”. It was…..in the same way that Lee and Grant reached an agreement at the Appomattox Courthouse in 1865. It was a complete surrender on the part of Republicans. All that was “negotiated” were the terms of that surrender.

Yeah, pretty much. Except that, as I recall, Grant allowed Lee’s men to keep their swords and horses, didn’t he? I’m not sure the 2013 GOP even managed to get that much out of the deal.

In any case, Campbell’s email is basically an effort to buck up the spirits of his fellow conservatives by taking shots at the media, Janet Yellen, Obamacare, and scurrilous Democrats. (No, I’m not sure what Yellen did to deserve being put into this company.) That’s all fine. But I thought this was the interesting part:

The next “cliff” comes on January 15, 2014 when the government could potentially shut down again. That date was intentionally chosen because that is when the next round of Sequester cuts, that further reduce government spending, take effect. This round of cuts will disproportionately hit defense spending. Democrats are hoping that they can leverage increased funding for defense for all the IRS, EPA, ObamaCare and welfare spending that they want. I think that effort will fail. The greatest threats to America today are from within, not without. In my opinion, we must preserve the Sequester as the only force we currently have that is limiting the cost and scope of government to some degree. Between now and then, watch the White House spin machine spool up on how “devastating” these cuts are in order to soften the ground for this push. But, if they want to shut the government down again in order to increase spending, let them do it.

How should this be taken? In its most obvious sense, it’s an assertion that Republicans won’t budge on sequester levels of spending. If the greatest threats to America are “from within, not without,” this means they’re willing to sacrifice the Pentagon in order to keep domestic spending low.

On the other hand—and I freely admit that I’m just reading tea leaves here—when Campbell says only that “I think” increased funding will fail, that sure doesn’t sound very adamant, does it? Even granted that Campbell isn’t a table-pounding type of tea partier, that seems pretty lukewarm. Maybe there really is a minor deal to be made on the budget later this year.

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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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist 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 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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