Read My Lips, No New Taxes Taxes For The Rich

If this plan were to go through, middle-class America would be oh so fooked:
...But don't lose sight of something that might be of greater immediate interest to the public: the fact that President Bush's tax reform panel, which is expected to send him its recommendations by November 1, is proposing to scale back two of the nation's most popular tax breaks, for home mortgage interest and employer-paid health insurance.
The panel is proposing the rollback as a way to compensate for its also-proposed elimination of the alternative minimum tax, which is affecting more and more middle-class taxpayers every year and is in serious need of fixing.

I personally don't see the GOP going ahead with rolling back the mortgage interest deduction. I DO, however, envisioning them going ahead and eliminating the AMT. Then they'll spend next year hemming and hawing about how they "have to do something about the deficit". They'll go into elections showing themselves to be great tax-cutters, and they'll (if all goes according to their plan), get re-elected. then they can spend the following year proposing the deduction offset rollbacks, which will probably get moving around 2008.....just in time for any GOP senators running for the top job to kill it. Then if a GOP wins the White House, they can try again in 2009.


Meanwhile, the deficit will continue to grow in spite of drastic cuts in other gov't services (none for the military, mind you, don't you know we are at war?).

This is a GOP party that lacks any pretence of fiscal responsibility, that knows full well that the best chance for Americas fiscal health is to elect a democratic president and a democratic congress to raise taxes as neccesary to restore balance to the budget and help pay for the social programs that are neccesary for many Americans. (Then they can be voted out for being "tax-and-spend liberuls").