Republicans Are Still the Same Old Republicans

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John Boehner’s “Plan B” is obviously just political theater. Hell, it’s not even good political theater. Sure, it allows the the top marginal rate for millionaires to increase to its fiscal cliff level (i.e., the level it will be at if we do nothing), but capital gains rates would go down, dividend rates would go down, and estate tax rates would go down. “Pease” limits on itemized deductions are eliminated, and the planned phaseout of the personal exemption goes away too. On net, millionaires do pretty well for themselves. At the same time, tax rates on the poor and middle class would go up.

This is just a bad joke. But the negotiations of the past few weeks have made clear that nothing has changed in Republican-land. Boehner just flatly doesn’t have the support of his caucus for a real deal. So he makes up weird stuff about interest expenditures “not counting” as a pretense to reject Obama’s latest offer, and then tosses out a plainly unserious plan as a way (he hopes) of creating a land mine for Democrats.

This is grade school stuff. Apparently, there’s simply no way to make a deal with House Republicans. Boehner is doing his best to mask that uncomfortable fact, but that’s where we’re at. The lunatics are still running the asylum.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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