Kudlow’s Elitist and Out of Touch Attack on Obama
Lawrence Kudlow attempts to smear Barack Obama:
Uncapping the payroll tax reveals still another cultural misstep by Sen. Obama. He apparently has a difficult time understanding that nowadays, a veteran fireman or a veteran cop, married to a veteran schoolteacher, will make well over $100,000. In fact, they can make close to $200,000. Yet Obama still wants to go ahead and tax both the first and last payroll dollar of this group at a very high marginal tax rate by uncapping the Social Security (FICA) tax. (Incidentally, I don’t think Mr. Obama knows any cops or fireman. How about that? That is the problem. In other words, his economics are bad and his social circle is very limited.)
Duncan Black have been laughing so hard that he omitted the sentences in parenthesis:
The FICA cap is an individual cap, unaffected by income earned/payroll taxes paid by your spouse.
Brad DeLong has a new nominee for Stupidest Man Alive:
One would think that National Review would want to maintain a smidgeon of a reputation, and hence at least edit Larry Kudlow for his biggest howlers. But no.
The only problem with Brad’s suggestion is that if the National Review edited out Kudlow’s major whoppers, they’d be nothing left. Almost every word this Klown writes is incredibly stupid. No self respecting cop or fireman would even let Kudlow buy them a beer. And Kudlow has demonstrated ad nauseum that he knows nothing about economics.
Update: AB reader Rollotomasi let’s us know that Kudlow likely does not under the current law. Let me explain by assuming a fireman who earns $98,000 (does Kudlow know even one fireman who earns this much) married to a school teacher who earns $102,000 (after all – school teachers must all be rich in Kudlow’s view of the world). It seems that all of their $200,000 in income for 2008 will be fully taxed under the current law.