All the tax shelters, loopholes and extra credits/deductions are the primary reason just filing ones taxes is so maddening for so many, and artificially lower tax revenue so that current tax brackets are more of a guideline than anything else. What bothers me here is the larger principle abolishing the AMT represents: This is not the time to go around handing out yet more massive tax cuts. If I had any faith that the proposed tax code "reform" would actually accomplish its stated goal of increasing revenue by streamlining the process it would be different (I still don't get why personal income tax rates go up to 38% then back DOWN to 35%, so a small group of upper middle class people could actually LOWER their tax by INCREASING their income), but dropping the highest bracket from 35% to 29% gives the lie to that. Instead it looks more like anything we save with spending cuts (that will be very painful for millions of retired people) will just be passed along to people and corporations who have their tax rate reduced 6%, and the deficit will be largely uneffected.

It's ironic that SS and Medicare were created to force people to save for retirement with assistance from employers and government, but the first generation to live their whole lives with Social Security is bankrupting it and Medicare now. Personally, I think it's as simple as the boomers pissing away potential government revenue by demanding lower taxes so they'd have more money to waste on cheap crap they don't need (bought on credit, no less), and now that they're retiring we can't make it up because their kids consider low tax rates THEIR entitlement, at least as much a sacred cow as SS and Medicare benefits. The rest of the developed world thinks we're insane, and it's increasingly hard to argue with them. I can't recall a single time in world history that the "grow your way out of debt" fantasy has actually WORKED (estimates I've seen for our case say it would take decades of double digit economic growth), but even if it could, increasing the GDP will have no effect on the debt if we're handing out 6% tax cuts along the way. Beats responsibility though, I guess.