Chuck Grassley: “as I said, I will discuss those updated numbers when they are given to me by JCT. I mentioned earlier that the argument…”

“as I said, I will discuss those updated numbers when they are given to me by JCT. I mentioned earlier that the argument that our recent tax policies are responsible for the wild growth in the alternative minimum tax is an old and a very tired argument, intellectually dishonest. The Ways and Means press release of November 14, 2007 refers to a letter of March 6, 2001, sent by Mr. Rangel to President Bush. I just talked about a Democratic staffer making the same point in Tax Notes in 2005. I am not bothered by these arguments in and of themselves. They are based upon poor analysis, if that, and it is easy for me to respond to them. What does bother me, however, is that clearly many people are more interested in trying to make cheap political points than actually dealing with the alternative minimum tax. If House Democrats were concerned about the tax burden, they would repeal the alternative minimum tax without raising taxes on other taxpayers to replace revenue that was never supposed to come into the Federal Treasury, because these 23 million middle-income taxpayers were never supposed to be hit by the alternative minimum tax, because it was only meant to be paid by the superrich. I have made the point many times, that this alternative minimum tax was never meant as a revenue source, and I do not care if I made it twice in a row, three times in a row, it is a fact of life: These 23 million people were never meant to pay it.”