First up is the “Soak the Rich” tool from our friends at Media Trackers.

This allows you to literally soak a given industry with tax hikes with the click of a button and see the effect on the deficit. A popular misconception is that tax increases could take care of the deficit with great ease. Play around with the tool and you’ll see that is simply not true. Now, if only we could get every player in this debate to play around with it, too, and get more campaigns producing things like this routinely, grabbing useful data while promoting them, and getting more people to share them (education, organization, communication). As has been pointed out numerous times by yelling at walls, increased taxes is a drop of water in the ocean of spending and as always, is based on the assumption that tax increases will result in higher revenues (which we know it won’t).

Second is the Bankrupting America iPhone app released by the fiscal conservative group Public Notice, which provides a constant stream of locally-relevant news about spending and debt to users.

It has added functionality that lets users share examples of wasteful spending with the group by uploading photos or videos, which Public Notice intends to then feature on its website. So, there’s a two-way flow of information that again facilitates education, communication and organization. GOP, take note.