John Spratt: “We know that 1.7 million taxpayers last year had to deal with the AMT, the Alternative Minimum Tax. We know from the…”

“We know that 1.7 million taxpayers last year had to deal with the AMT, the Alternative Minimum Tax. We know from the Treasury Department over the next 10 years that number will grow to 39 million taxpayers, mostly middle income Americans. The gentleman was here when that bill passed. I was here. It was not intended for middle income Americans. It was intended for upper bracket taxpayers. Consequently, when they find out that deductions and credits and preferences that we promised them in the Tax Code are not fully available because of this thing called the AMT, they are not going to like it. They will be numerous, rising to 39 million taxpayers. I am sure we will eventually relent and have to modify that and should modify the AMT. But every time we bring it up and say you have to factor this in to the future planning for revenues, sooner or later we have to do something about the AMT, it gets shoved forward, gets ignored. That is another element that was simply omitted in the consideration of this budget and a reason we said this is not a real budget.”