The House voted today to shield 21 million Americans from the unintended consequences of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). No doubt the Senate will follow suit and the President will sign it soon enough. This is good news on the whole, but the bill passed is totally irresponsible--courtesy of your Republican Party, which blocked all Democratic attempts to pay for it. This bill will cost on the order of a trillion dollars over the next decade or so, and that goes straight to the bottom line.
The disgusting part of this whole sordid affair is that, even though both parties know the AMT has become unfair and requires massive adjustment (if not outright elimination), all budget forecasts quietly assume the AMT will continue. Every single budget Bush and the old Republican Congress ever presented to justify those unprecedented tax cuts for the wealthy only added up because they counted the windfall in the "out-years" (2007 and beyond) when the will AMT hammer the middle class. All those budgets were shams.
This year the new Democratic Congress tried to find ways to pay for eliminating the AMT, but the Republicans ridiculed these attempts as tax "hikes"--even though their own budget numbers still include all that tax revenue and more from the AMT! The Republicans held hostage the fortunes of 21 million Americans until the Democrats finally had to give in. Bush and the Republicans have driven the budget straight over a cliff.
Every time Bush and the Republicans talk about "holding the line" on the budget, it makes me want to puke. They style themselves "fiscal conservatives" and smugly oppose all taxes, while they plow us deeper and deeper into debt. We are now $9.2 trillion in debt--up from $5.7 when Bush took office--and already nearly a quarter of all income tax goes to pay interest on the debt. That's a half-trillion dollar annual subsidy for Wall Street. This crop of Republicans gets off scot free while they force all the tough choices onto the next Congress. Argh!
As Kerry said back in 2004, "These guys are the worst bunch of liars and thieves I've ever seen."
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Vote Democratic in 2008 for Fiscal Responsibility
Posted by Dr. Strangelove at 2:52 PM
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3 comments:
Yep, "Borrow and Spend" Republicans.
Oh, and of course it's better to spend it on wars than on research that could develop new, greener technology or on health care or on education or anything that isn't purely destructive.
No, you have it all wrong! The real problem isn't taxes, it's earmarks!
It's that lousy Congress bringing home pork fat to their districts! If Congress would just quit with earmarks, there's be so much more money to give out to the wealthy who would trickle it down to us 'little people'.
It is an interesting day when the tax system is so unfair, even Warren Buffet takes objection to it.
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