The Senate is still stalled on fixing the alternative minimum tax [1], a deadlock that could, at a minimum, mean that next year’s tax refunds will be delayed for millions of people [2]. It’s starting to look like one of those classic Washington deadlocks – there may not be an irresistible force involved, but there certainly seems to be no shortage of immovable objects.

One senator compared the alternative minimum tax to Frankenstein, and he’s not going to get much of an argument on that. The AMT is a strange mutation of the tax system [3] that was supposed to make sure the rich didn’t get away without paying any income tax at all. But because no one ever adjusted the AMT for inflation, there are about 25 million families who are likely to pay it unless something is done.

The problem is that changing the AMT will take $50 billion out of the budget, and under the so-called “pay as you go” rule designed to control the deficit, Congress should make up that money somewhere else. The Democrats want to do that by increasing a "carried interest" tax provision that mostly affects hedge fund managers and other Wall Streeters, while the Republicans say there shouldn’t be any tax increase to make up for an AMT expansion that was never supposed to happen anyway.

So why worry? Why not just “patch” the AMT and let us all get on with filing our tax returns?

The AMT may be Frankenstein [4], but abandoning the “pay as you go” principle is the Son of Frankenstein [5]. Patching the AMT without doing something to offset the costs – whether its tax increases or spending cuts – will certainly help millions of people now. But abandoning "pay as you go" may hurt even more down the road [5], which is why so many different groups are worried about how this plays out [6]. The whole reason the government is $9 trillion in debt [6] is that we’d rather spend now and pay later. Eventually, we’re got to start paying now for what we spend now. There’s no other way to close the deficit, and until we close the deficit we can’t start controlling the national debt. And if we don’t control the national debt, eventually the debt is going to start controlling us.