Even more on taxes, spending, and the stimulus

Americans for Tax Reform has a new fact page on "Tax Bites" - showing how much taxes take up for the cost of goods and services we buy, from cigarettes to meals, and airfare to wireless telephone services.

Heritage has a blog post responding to Obama's speech on his tax policies - noting specifically that his "tax cuts" are in fact income redistribution, that his tax cuts do not affect "the most workers" of any tax cut in history, that his plans won't "stimulate anything", and that his numbers of jobs he will create is a fabricated estimate.

On the economic stimulus, Reason Magazine talks to a number of economists on their perspective of the stimulus.  Specifically they answer the questions about what are the problems with the stimulus, what in the stimulus will work, and even whether "doing nothing" is a better option for the economy.  My favorite comment is from Robert Higgs, who says that all of the stimulus will work - work to reward every special interest allied with the Democratic Party.

Finally, Chris Edwards writes of the ballooning number of federal subsidy programs - which has been going on for decades - and that we have now reached 1,804 such programs.  He also offers a small sample of the subsidy programs added since 2000, a myriad of large, small, and bizarre programs.  He does not offer a list of government programs that have been discontinued.  I wonder why.