Robert Novak notes the abject failure of Harry Reid to manage to get a "patch" for the Alternative Minimum Tax through the Senate. In past years the Congress has managed to put on a patch so as to keep even more people from getting sucked into the monster that the Democrat-controlled Congress unleashed some 38-years ago. That flawed AMT law was never indexed for inflation and more and more taxpayers have been grabbed by it through the years. But this year, people will be directly impacted by the failure to get the patch through. Refunds will be delayed for millions of taxpayers. This one is going to leave a mark – on Reid.
Habitual congressional gridlock usually has no impact on the lives of ordinary Americans. But what happened on the Senate floor last Friday just before lawmakers left for their Thanksgiving break will delay tax refunds next year for some 50 million taxpayers who count on them.
The underlying reason is a 38-year-old congressional tax blunder that has never been corrected. In 1969, Congress passed the alternative minimum tax (AMT) to collect from 155 tax-avoiding millionaires. But because the scheme was not indexed for inflation, this year alone it would hit 23 million extra people with higher taxes. The AMT will be "patched" to provide relief, as it has been in every Congress, but not in time this year. Refunds totaling more than $75 billion will arrive many weeks late not only for taxpayers earning $100,000 to $200,000 who are unintentionally affected by the AMT but also for lower-income persons because the IRS refund procedure will be disrupted by the delay.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's eleventh-hour effort to fix the problem on Friday collapsed when he refused to open the proceedings to votes on Republican tax-cutting proposals. At the heart of this deadlock is a debate between Democrats and Republicans over whether the level of federal taxation should be controlled. For once, the debate comes home to ordinary taxpayers in the form of delayed refund checks.
The Bush administration had been asking Congress for the patch for months. The Democrats have been well aware that this is a critical issue that needed to be addressed. But Reid managed to throw a roundhouse right that landed on his own eye. Both parties have their hands in all this, of course, but Reid has been transparently playing posturing partisan politics with several bills that were never intended to pass, merely to be introduced for show purposes. Reid decided on partisan brinkmanship and was unable to keep from going over the cliff this time.
Average people are going to be very angry at this. Reid pulled a stunt of keeping the Senate in session – on paper, at least – to prevent recess appointments. People are going to ask why the Senate could not have stayed in session long enough to actually get the work done that taxpayers pay them to do. This one is going to hurt Reid badly.
Don’t be surprised if the MSM and their Democrat pets try to pin this on the GOP. They will succeed if the Republicans do their usual roll-over-and-play-dead routine.
Now would be an excellent time for the Administration and Congressional Republicans to grow a spine!
As has been said before – Reid is one of, if not the, most inept majority leader(s) (from either party) the Senate has ever had.
It’s amazing how often the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot since taking power in 2007. They’re outdoing even the prior Republican-controlled congress for the title of “Most Willfully Stupid.”
The question now is whom can we trust? The Republican greed and ignorance handed a victory to the Democrats who have proved that they can be even more greedy and stupid. Maybe there needs to be four parties. The Dems and Repubs and then add the Intelligent Right of Center and the Intelligent Left of Center. Because people with a brain, regardless of political orientation, are looking at Congress and saying “What the Hell is the matter with these people?”