To AMT or not to AMT?

The New York Times says House Democrats are working on a permanent fix for the alternative minimum tax. Nobody's going to argue with them on that -- the AMT was intended to apply to a few super-rich people, not one-fifth of all taxpayers, which is what's going to happen unless something's changed.

The problem is that AMT will bring in a lot of money to the Treasury over the next few years; $50 billion or more per year. If PAYGO is going to be anything other than a catchphase for wonks, and if federal finances are going to be even remotely under control in the next few years, Congress is going to have to make up for that lost revenue somehow. The House Democrats say that's what they intend to do; we certainly hope they stick to that. We suspect whatever they do will look more like the Tax Policy Center's suggestions than those from Heritage, but we'll be waiting to see what happens.