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The Stimulus Bill Becomes Law
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As someone who is subject to the alternative-minimum tax (AMT), I would be happy to pay higher taxes so that low-income people can get tax cuts and credits and spend the money to stimulate the economy, because I would derive a disproportionate benefit from the resulting rise in the value of my stocks. The AMT "patch" included in the stimulus bill will do nothing to stimulate the economy.
State governments and the low- and middle-income workers who constitute the majority of the population will spend most of the money they will receive under the stimulus bill. Yet, in the final stages of negotiations, Congress cut money for both and raised the exemption for the AMT, which affects only a small percentage of mostly high-income taxpayers. Congress has invented new mathematics and new English and called the AMT taxpayers middle class.
The Reaganomics axiom that the rich were too poor to pay taxes and the poor were too rich to need support from the government was a transparent mechanism in a class war won by the rich. Even in this economic meltdown that has resulted from this axiom, the class war continues, as some experts and political leaders continue to ask for still lower taxes for the rich.
KALYAN SINGHAL
Columbia
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