[techweenie]

I'd forgotten about Gingrich's 'privatize school lunches' idea.

What I noticed early-on about conservatives is they seem very jealous and angry about any form of assistance to the poor. they can get more worked up about a handful of 'welfare queens' getting a few thousand extra a month than a defense contractor getting a multi-million dollar windfall.

The latest theme is that if taxes are cut, charitable giving will go up and all wil be well. But if you look at the rate of charitable giving in this country, that's just another conservative myth.

Moneyguy is right. AMT is the secret revenue-booster in the mix. It allows "published" tax rates to drop while actual tax rates paid inch upward. Bulletin to Island: AMT primarily affects the top brackets.

My 2002 taxes were late, and I canculated them online with Quicken's 1040 service and nearly fell out of my chair at the impact of AMT. I went to a professional tax preparer and he worked his way around to avoid AMT and saved me $47K (I did well in '02). So if you think the AMT is a minor part of the tax code, pray you don't run into it.