April 24, 2012

John Boehner and the Amazing Student Loan Non-Vote

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Here’s the latest from Speaker of the House John Boehner:

Steve Benen does a fine job of explaining why this is so ridiculous. But on the bright side, at least Boehner — or the intern who tweeted this for him — called the 2007 Congress “Democratic-controlled” rather than “Democrat-controlled.” Thanks, Mr. Speaker!

As for the substance of the student loan issue, I’ll confess to feelings of extreme ambivalence about it. I’m feeling less and less confident over time that increases in federal student aid actually end up aiding students, rather than simply giving universities and trade schools more headroom to raise their fees. But I think I need to study up on this further before I take sides.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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