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CAR TAX UPDATE….I see that the California legislature is thinking of taking my advice and raising the vehicle license fee back to the same rate (2% of assessed value) that we had for most of our history:

The plan creates a potential political quandary for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The last governor to triple the vehicle license fee was his predecessor, Gray Davis, and it played a large role in his recall. In his first act in office, Schwarzenegger cut the fee back down to its current rate.

Yeah, that’s a quandary all right. Poor Arnold.

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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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