In the Washington Post today, Ruth Marcus recognizes that Bush is relying on a tax increase via the AMT to claim that he can balance the budget without raising taxes. Looked at another way, what the Bush tax cuts give to taxpayers, the AMT grabs back. By 2012, if it isn't changed, the AMT would take back almost one-third of the Bush tax cuts...it would take back more than half of the tax cut for people making between $100,000 and $200,000. ...the AMT has been transformed from its original purpose, a means of assuring that the wealthiest pay at least some taxes, into a way of underwriting tax cuts for the wealthiest. Because the AMT hits fewer of those with the highest incomes, the rather comfortable end up subsidizing Bush's tax cuts for the super-rich. Marcus's piece makes some other good points and neatly summarizes the coming troubles (or fixes as far as Mr. Bush is concerned) that the AMT will cause for middle-class taxpayers. She ends her column wondering: That leaves the middle class, the better-off and corporations to divvy up the tab. In that context, does it really make sense to permanently repeal the estate tax? To leave in place lower tax rates for the richest Americans? To continue to tax capital gains and dividends at far lower rates than ordinary income? These are the choices that the Bush budget entails, even if it fails, deliberately, to spell them out.