Sanders totally pwned Kudlow, but he is still full of BS.

For one, the "working families" do not pay any income tax.

Am I right, Haik? Do you not get back your entire withholding and then some?

"Working families" will not be paying for this bailout.

Still, Sanders was on fire, Kudlow looked like an idiot, and the clip was very funny.

 

Am I right, Haik?

No. There is a chart from the Congressional Budget Office here that takes a look at effective Federal tax rates for 2003 and 2004. Filing a federal tax return starts to cost money in the middle quintile of household earnings- those with an average income of 54K. That means a household with two working adults each earning 27K does pay income tax, even after deductions and tax credits.

The fact that my own family falls in either the lowest or second lowest quintile of household earnings is hardly relevent. When the kids get older and Poopsie can work full time too, we will probably climb into that middle quintile. For now we do take deductions and credits that make our effective tax rate negative.

Still I have a couple of points to make about that-

One, federal income tax is withheld from my checks, so I've at least loaned the government that money throughtout the year

and two- Federal income tax is withheld from the checks of all the poor schleps who, for whatever reason, don't file taxes. Those working folks don't get it back, so it's hardly fair to say they don't pay.

 

Now, Haik, we both know that "working families" is a euphemism for working poor. Bernie says, "the middle class and working families." Ergo, working families are not in the middle class.

Now, if someone does not file their tax returns, you can hardly blame the government that they do not get their money back.

 

First of all Charity, one can be in the "middle class" without working- through inheritance or other forms of unearned income. Therefore "middle class" and "working families" can be two distinct groups that happen to overlap.

Secondly Sanders said these people will asked to bail out Wall Street. He doesn't mention income tax specifically. As you know there are a variety of other mechanisms used by the federal government to extract revenue from the population, including the poor.

Now, if someone does not file their tax returns, you can hardly blame the government that they do not get their money back.

I didn't say anything about blame. You said poor people don't pay income tax. I'm saying that working poor people who don't file for a refund do pay income tax. The reason why they don't or who blames whom is immaterial. The point is that they pay.