HOT5 Daily 4/21/2011

1. "Who Pays How Much in Income Taxes?" Guess who pays the lion's share? Hint: it isn't people without much money.

Representative Sample: This bar graph uses data from the Internal Revenue Service to break down total federal income tax revenues by the earnings percentiles of the Americans who paid them.

2. "If We Must Waste Money..." An argument in favor of one type of government spending.

Representative Sample: We dare not let our manned space program atrophy – it is already bad enough that with the end of the shuttle program we will have no capability of putting a man in to space for some years. This is a terrible dereliction of duty on the part of our government as it allows time for China to catch up a bit. There is a time and a place to be cheap – manned space flight isn’t it.

3. "The Rapture" Pretty funny, and true.

Representative Sample: It's a photo

4. "Huggies Diapers, Papa John’s Pizza Pull Ads From Left-Wing Blog Attacking Trig Palin" The sheer level of Palin-hatred that leads to attacks on a 3-year old is pretty staggering.

Representative Sample: when something like this does happen on the right, conservatives make life miserable for them even though they may otherwise be simpatico. On the other hand, the left loves this sort of hate. IF this sort of hate is spewed at their enemies, they revel in it.

5. "Jaw, Jaw is Better Than Cut, Cut" Good points about the unseriousness of the budget debate in Washington.

Representative Sample: the Democrats offer pretend cuts and very real tax hikes — even as we continue to pile up $1.5+ trillion dollars in new debt each year and the Federal behemoth squashes employment and growth.