Have You Ever Heard of Rep. Steve Austria (R-OH)?

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Unless you have some sort of “giant idiot” section of your RSS reader, you probably haven’t. Here’s his attempt to deliver a Republican talking point:

“When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression,” Austria said. “He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That’s just history.”

Actually, that’s just wrong. If Austria is auditioning for “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader,” I have some advice for him. You’re going to lose, chief. Any grade school kid knows that the stock market crash that precipitated the Great Depression occurred in 1929. The unfairly maligned Roosevelt took office in 1933.

My prediction? In 2060, Republicans will blame Barack Obama for overseeing the collapse of the American financial industry in the fall of 2008.

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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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