A merchant offers a large group of items at $30\%$ off. Later, the merchant takes $20\%$ off these sale prices. The total discount is

$\text{(A)}\ 35\%\qquad\text{(B)}\ 44\%\qquad\text{(C)}\ 50\%\qquad\text{(D)}\ 56\%\qquad\text{(E)}\ 60\%$
Let's assume that each item is $100$ dollars. First we take off $30\%$ off of $100$ dollars. $100\cdot0.7=70$
Next, we take off the extra $20\%$ as asked by the problem. $70\cdot0.80=56$
So the final price of an item is $56. We have to do $100-56$ because $56$ was the final price and we wanted the discount. So the final answer is $44\%$, which is answer choice $\boxed{(B) 44 \%}$.