AMT Relief Act of 2007
AMT RELIEF ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - December 12, 2007)
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Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it's sort of hard to listen to lectures about fiscal responsibility. For years Democrats have claimed that it is time to pay for this war; it's fiscally irresponsible not to pay for this war; it ought to be part of the budget. Have they paid for the war? No, not a dime.
For years they said it's irresponsible to raise the debt limit; it's all your fault; we cannot raise the debt limit. What did they do the first 2 months of this session? Raise the public debt limit.
For years they've said we need to pay for all our spending, pay for all our taxes. So what have they done?
I have a list of 27 different pay-fors that have been used multiple times already in this session. It's like using your home as collateral 27 different times. In the real world we call that fraud.
It's unfortunate we are here today. I honestly don't believe when Democrats created this tax in the 1960s that they intended ever to cover this many middle-class Americans. But it has happened. Republicans, to their credit, had killed the AMT in 1999, but President Clinton unfortunately vetoed it. Today it has gotten bigger and badder and worse than ever. It is appropriate that we move to both freeze and then to repeal the alternative minimum tax. But there are real serious problems with this bill.
Paying for a temporary tax of 1 year with a permanent tax is just, again, fiscally irresponsible. It is like taking a loan out to pay for a cheeseburger.
This bill ignores the need to continue tax relief for States that have State and local sales tax deductions, for college tuition tax credits, for research and development tax credits, even for teachers who take classroom supplies and pay for them out of their pockets, we're not addressing their needs. And those all expire at the end of this year.
Finally, I think it is a mistake to raise taxes in order to prevent a tax increase. What we ought to be doing is we ought to be sitting down together, Republicans and Democrats, figuring out a way to thoughtfully and carefully trim this budget, this big, fat, bloated, obese budget up here so we don't increase taxes. Before Washington asks families to tighten their belt, we ought to sit down and tighten our belt first.
This is a bad bill, a fiscally irresponsible bill, and I urge opposition.
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