The New Middle Class - $100,000 to $500,000

The Dems have some plans to fix problems in the tax code that they wouldn't let the GOP fix. This Washington Post story tells us that "middle class" people who make $100,000 to $500,000 can expect some help:

Democratic leaders this week vowed to make the alternative minimum tax a centerpiece of next year's budget debate, saying the levy threatens to unfairly increase tax bills for millions of middle-class families by the end of the decade.

The complex and expensive tax was designed to prevent the super-rich from using deductions, credits and other shelters to avoid paying the Internal Revenue Service. But because of rising incomes, the tax is expected to expand to more than 30 million taxpayers in 2010 from 3.8 million mostly well-off households in 2006.

Fixing the AMT has long been a top priority for Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is in line to head the Senate Finance Committee. Last year, Baucus co-authored a bill to repeal the tax with Senate Finance Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the presumptive chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, this week put fixing the AMT at the top of his agenda, calling it far more urgent than dealing with President Bush's request to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire in 2010...

The impact is harshest on taxpayers with annual incomes of $100,000 to $500,000. The truly rich typically are not affected because their regular tax rates already are higher than under the AMT.

So Charles Rangel thinks it's more important to help people in the $100K-$500K income range through the AMT fix rather than help EVERY taxpayer by extending the Bush tax cuts. If a Republican proposed something like that he'd be excoriated in the press and by the Dems.

I'm not complaining - this change could help me, but I'd like to hear the argument for helping the guy who makes pretty big bucks while raising the taxes on the poor, the likely result of ignoring the Bush tax cuts while fixing the AMT.

Perhaps he's planning to replace the lost AMT money with the money from the poor.