The focus on the AMT is hardly surprising, given that victims of the tax have been concentrated in high-cost urban areas such as Washington, New York and San Francisco -- places that tend to vote Democratic.
Now, I remember that the Democrats have fought tooth and nail to keep the AMT every time it's come up for elimination under a Republican Congress, claiming that to do so would punish the middle class and reward the wealthy. Perhaps no one has noticed--or has conveniently ignored--that the number of wealthy Democrats is much higher than the number of wealthy Republicans. Speaker Richbitch is the second wealthiest member of the House of Representatives; she's worth four times what the President is worth. The Kerry-Edwards ticket was worth about 1.1 BILLION dollars, or roughly ONE HUNDRED TIMES the evil Bush-Cheney one. These are the people who are going to benefit from the elimination of the AMT.
Meanwhile, as a self-employed individual, my marginal tax rate is 33 percent--the same as Exxon-Mobil, Wal-Mart and all of the other evil rich corporations--and it's MY taxes that are going to go up. Count on it.
Like I've said time and again...I'm not a Democrat because I'm not rich enough.
