[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 56 (Wednesday, May 10, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H2342]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            AMT BECOMES ATM

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, nothing spells out the political 
cynicism and misplaced Republican priorities better than the tax bill 
we are about to vote upon. More assistance to the people in the top 
one-tenth of a percent whose burden has actually fallen 25 percent 
since Bush took office, the over-million-dollar crowd will get an 
additional $40,000 a year for the next 10 years.
  But the Republican leadership and the Bush administration is playing 
Russian roulette with the alternative minimum tax and the 15.3 million 
families whose only sin is to pay taxes, pay their mortgage and raise 
their families. Every year more of them fall into a trap, and each year 
the Republican leadership fails to make a long-term fix a priority. 
They would rather play politics with the favored few.
  This misguided priority is shameful, as Medicare and Medicaid 
deficits widen and the national debt increases. The alternative minimum 
tax, the AMT, has become an ATM to finance more tax cuts for people who 
need it least and put at risk 33 million American families who will 
fall into the AMT tax trap by 2010 when the house of cards comes 
crashing down.

                          ____________________