Kudlow isn't just Stupid!

He's a scumbag and a liar, a knowing propagandist, a charlatan...

In a recent blog he wrote:

Oh really. New IRS data released last month tell a very different story: In the aftermath of the Bush investment tax cuts, the federal income tax burden has substantially shifted onto the backs of the wealthy. Between 2002 and 2004, tax payments by those with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) of more than $200,000 a year, which is roughly 3% of taxpayers, increased by 19.4% -- more than double the 9.3% increase for all other taxpayers.

What Kudlow fails to mention is that the income of the wealthy is going up faster than their tax burden. Their burden as a percent of their income is actually going down.

The tax burden of the poor and middle class, as a percentage of their income, is actually going up. That pisses Kudlow off.

Let's say the richest man in the world owns 10% of America's wealth and pays 10% of America's taxes. Then 10 years later he owns 20% of America's wealth and pays 15% of America's taxes. Has his burden gone up or down? Kudlow would say it's gone up, though obviously it has gone down.

But don't take my word for it. Take it from the Wall Street Journal:

In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data.
[Charts]

Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years.

Larry Kudlow is a jackass.