Over the weekend the New York Times ran an editorial calling for AMT reform when Congress reconvenes from its Memorial Day break:
True reform must lift the alternative-tax burden from wrongly afflicted taxpayers while enacting a fair way to raise tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue that will be forgone. President Bush has long promised a real fix but has never taken action. The truth is, Mr. Bush needs the alternative tax because the revenue it’s projected to generate masks the drain from the tax cuts he has lavished on millionaires. So reform will be up to Congress.
The editorial discusses the unfairness of the Bush tax cuts having shifted the federal appetite for revenue inappropriately from the rich to the middle class and poor — an argument I’m receptive to, but don’t necessarily agree with in its entirety.
However, there is I think a rather significant omission in the editorial. The writers’ emphasis is on the need to shift the AMT to preserve future revenue streams.
What ever happened to a more obvious solution — if you’re going to collect less in tax revenue, why not spend less?