The House’s official budget resolution will be posted on its Budget Committee website at 10:30am tomorrow, but its crucial details are already known on the Hill.
As I mentioned earlier, the filibuster shield known as “reconciliation” will be invoked by the House on a time-dependent basis for health care reform, but not used in the Senate. The House budget is also set to “save money” by not permanently indexing the alternative minimum tax (AMT) to inflation — and I put that phrase in quotes because Congress inevitably adjusts the AMT every year, but never attempts a permanent AMT fix for fear of acknowledging its huge impact on the deficit.
The AP refers to this fuzzy tax math near the bottom of its budget story today:
On the alternative minimum tax, Spratt said the budget will not in later years incorporate Obama’s assumption that the $30 billion-plus cost of fixing the AMT and instead assumes other revenues are raised to limit its reach.
President Obama, to his credit, proposed a permanent AMT fix in his budget. Obama also asked Congress to budget for a $250 billion place-holder fund that’s intended to pay for a third round of bailout money for struggling banks — but that notion is dead on arrival in Congress, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) acknowledged this afternoon.
“[I]t’s not in there, and I have no problem with that,” Reid told reporters.
Reid and fellow Democratic senators will meet with Obama tomorrow on the budget, followed by a presidential visit to the House on Monday, according to the Politico.
