Required Reading: Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012

A big week for competitions, with Romney v. Gingrich and the Super Bowl of Patriots v. Giants. For this hump day Required Reading, the New York Times asks where readers think the government could trim some fat and Spotify freeloaders see their streaming usage curbed.

Sen. Rand Paul cuts the U.S. a check: Politico reports on how much of the money allotted to each U.S. senator's office is returned by the politicians at the end of the year. On Monday, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky held a press conference, showing off a giant $500,000 check, returning his unused funds to the U.S. Treasury. The story also includes a list of how much each senator paid back in 2009 and 2010, with Richard Shelby of Alaska returning the most, and Barbara Boxer of California the least. Montana Sen. Jon Tester placed in the top half of the pack, although Sen. Max Baucus came in much closer to the end of the list.

NYT crowdsources defense budget cuts: At the start of January, the New York Times asked its readers to choose what they thought the Department of Defense should cut to save money, after the DOD announced that it would be making $450 billion in spending reductions over the next 10 years. The paper has now published the reader's choice results. The most popular cut was to reduce ground troops in Europe and Asia, which would save the department $69 billion. The original site to choose cuts is still active, so anybody can try their skill at finding places to save the military money.

Spotify free accounts receiving limits: Non-paying Spotify users take note. The music streaming service first came to the United States last July, with a free account option that granted users unlimited streaming, albeit with commercials. But that lack of limitations was only for a limited time. Once you have had your Spotify Free account for six months, you will be limited both on total play time and number of times to play each track. Free accounts will be limited to 10 hours of play time per month and you will only be able to stream a track five times, ever.