Levey is back

The LAT's Noam Levey, Democrat propagandist-in-chief, absent recently, alleges this morning in the newspaper that Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility while Republicans are the party of tax cuts. True in part but mostly untrue. Democrats hardly ever reduce spending and, in fact, consistently argue for government to do more, which means that government under Democrats has a constant need to raise taxes. Republicans, historically, have pushed for government to do less, to leave people alone, to stay out of there lives as much as possible. Republicans believe that government takes too big a chunk of people's income. It naturally follows that Republicans would push for lower taxes.

Negotiations on the AMT triggered Levey's piece. The AMT should never have been in the tax statutes. Most people agree with that. It could be argued that the federal government has been collecting an unlawful tax since 1969 -- well, perhaps not unlawful but surely mistaken. It should simply stop doing that -- collecting the AMT. If that means that expenditures must be reduced to prevent further increasing the deficit then Congress should get busy. The Democrats always argue for increases in taxes to offset the reduced revenue after AMT reform. Stalemate results and the AMT lives on.