Tilting at windmills

Washington Monthly, Oct, 2007 by Charles Peters

When the AMT hits the ATM

When you read all the moaning from editorial writers at the New York Times and the Washington Post about the impact of the alternative minimum tax, you should ask them to tell you the extent to which their personal problem with the tax is that it deprives them of the benefit of the Bush tax cuts, which, you will recall, they condemned as irresponsible.

One thing to watch as the AMT "reform" movement grows--and grow it will, as it now threatens many elite journalists--is that Max Baucus, the Democratic senator leading the movement, is not known for his immunity to the importunings of lobbyists, and is unlikely to support replacing the lost revenue through other taxes.

One more cost of Iraq

"British Criticize U.S. Air Attacks in Afghan Region--Civilian Toll Is Cited," was a recent headline in the New York Times. Of course, the reason for our excessive reliance on air attacks is that, beginning way back in 2002, Bush shortchanged the Afghan front of ground troops in order to prepare and carry out his insane invasion of Iraq. We gave our real enemies--Osama bin Laden and the Taliban that protected him--time to recover and come back to threaten Afghanistan, and us, again. And because we don't have enough ground troops, we have to rely too much on bombing, with its inevitable civilian casualties that only create new recruits for the bad guys.

Plane outrageous

I've often fretted about the failure of private plane owners to pay their share of the cost of airport and airline safety. Now, thanks to Nelson Schwarz of the New York Times, I have some interesting statistics to support my case. Private planes "account for 16 percent of the air traffic control system's overhead but contribute only 3 percent of the fees earmarked to run the system." And when you're stacked up over New York, fuming about the hot date or crucial business appointment you're in danger of missing, remember that "on a typical day in the airspace over New York roughly 20 to 30 percent of the air traffic comes from corporate jets."

Why Obama should really have that beer

Just to make sure you understand, I want Obama to have a beer with the guys because I want him to win. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post recently reminded me of another reason to favor him. It is that he not only helped pass a "far-reaching ethics and campaign finance bill in the Illinois state senate," but has, since he came to the U.S. Senate, supported an independent commission to review Senate ethics complaints, a reform to which senators with something to hide have been dedicated in their opposition. He also coauthored the lobbying reform bill that has passed both houses of Congress that "to the dismay of some colleagues--[includes] provisions requiring lawmakers to report the names of their lobbyist-bundlers," the fellows who put together bunches of contributions for their favorite candidates. Along with John Edwards, Obama is refusing to take lobbyist and PAC contributions. And, unlike both Clinton and Edwards, he has made his income tax returns public.