Tax Plan Showdown: Hillary Clinton vs. the Republicans

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The Tax Policy Center has analyzed Hillary Clinton’s various tax proposals, which means we now have data for the top three Republican candidates and the top Democractic candidate: Donald TrumpMarco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Clinton. Click the links for details. Or just look at the charts below for the nickel summary.

You don’t need to look very hard, do you? One of these things is not like the others. The Republicans all give middle-income taxpayers a tiny benefit as a sop to distract them from the humongous payday they give to the rich. Clinton basically leaves middle-income taxpayers alone and makes the rich pay a little more.

On the cost side, all of the supposedly fiscally conservative Republicans would blow a massive hole in the deficit. Clinton would actually make the deficit smaller.

Republicans will claim that their tax plans are designed to supercharge the economy and pay for themselves blah blah blah. This is BS, and they know it. They also claim they’ll slash spending. This is mostly BS too. On the other hand, Clinton says she’ll use the money from her tax plan to fund additional programs, which is entirely believable. This makes her plan deficit neutral. Basically, we have three fantasy plans and one realistic plan. The difference in fiscal responsibility is kind of mind-boggling, isn’t it?

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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.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists 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 hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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