Ed Schultz went after Sen. Orrin Hatch in his Psycho Talk segment for his little screed this week saying that the poor need to "share some of the responsibility" for shrinking the debt. TPM has more on that. Dems Go After Hatch For Saying Poor
July 8, 2011

Ed Schultz went after Sen. Orrin Hatch in his Psycho Talk segment for his little screed this week saying that the poor need to "share some of the responsibility" for shrinking the debt. TPM has more on that.

Dems Go After Hatch For Saying Poor Need To Do More To Shrink The Debt:

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is going after Sen. Orrin Hatch for saying that the poor need to "share some of the responsibility" for shrinking the debt.

"The top 10 percent are paying 70 percent of all income taxes. The top 50 percent pay something like 98 percent of all income taxes. Fifty-one percent don't pay anything," Hatch said.

"Democrats say they [the 51 percent] pay payroll taxes. Well, everybody does that because that's Social Security. They pay about one-third of what they're going to take out over the years in Social Security," Hatch said. "Obamacare -- a family of four earning over $80,000 a year -- gets subsidies. Think about that. That's what we call the poor?"

"Republican priorities are completely out of whack and Orrin Hatch's comments prove that point," DSCC's Shripal Shah told TPM.

"It's bad enough that Republicans are doing everything they can to protect tax breaks for millionaires and special interests, but the fact that the Republican idea of shared sacrifice means going after the those who are struggling the most is completely reprehensible," Shah said.

As I already pointed out here, Joshua Holland did a great job debunking last year why saying that the poor in this country don't pay their share in taxes even if they don't pay any federal income taxes is bunk. I wish Ed Schultz had made that point in this segment as well, but he didn't.

Maybe anyone that is on Twitter can make Ed and his staff aware of that fact on his feed at @WeGotEd.

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