Mark Udall: “I will vote for this bill--as I did for a similar measure last month--because of the urgent need to protect…”

“I will vote for this bill--as I did for a similar measure last month--because of the urgent need to protect middle-income families from a massive tax increase that will hit them if we do not act to adjust the Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT. The bill is not quite the same as H.R. 3996, which I voted for and which the House passed on November 9th. But it resembles that bill--and differs from the version passed by the Senate--in one very important respect: it is fiscally responsible. The Senate has voted for a bill that does not even attempt to offset the costs of changing the AMT. I think that should not be our first choice, because for too long the Bush Administration and its allies in Congress have followed that course--their view, in the words of Vice President Cheney, has been that 'deficits don't matter.' I disagree. I think deficits do matter, because they result in one of the worst taxes--the 'debt tax,' the big national debt that must be repaid, with interest, by future generations.”