Welcome, this is Anastasia Yuglova bringing you the Cato Daily Podcast.

Be sure to log on to our website W.W. dot Kato.org for a full archive of our

podcast as well as many other audio offerings.

In the latest issue of the Tax and Budget Bulletin, Cato's Director of Tax Policy Studies, Chris Edwards,

writes that although the proliferation of special interest spending in the federal budget in recent years has created much waste and corruption,

the main problem has not been that politicians have had their hands in the cookie jar.

It's that the cookie jar has grown so large. In today's podcast, Chris discusses

the recent explosion in federal subsidy programs. We've heard that government spending has

been rising a lot, but you also found that the number of federal programs has increased, right?

That's right, a lot of conservatives and libertarians have criticized the Bush administration for spending so much money,

but if you actually look at the number of different federal subsidy

programs, that's been rising rapidly as well.

There are 1,694 federal subsidy programs, and that number has increased from just 1,176 programs

15 years ago so there's been a large expansion in the welfare state in both

dollars and the number of programs.

What are some of the types of subsidy programs that the government spends our tax dollars on?

Well when you're talking about subsidy programs, you're talking about everything from straight cash handouts

like Social Security and

welfare as well as grants to universities and individuals and

businesses, loans to small business, insurance, benefits, scholarships.

These are all federal subsidy programs.

They all take money from taxpayers and give to other Americans.

...