THE GOP == PARTY OF THE TOP 0.1%

I recall hearing Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell say something like he and his GOP colleagues would never vote to raise taxes. This was in the context of altering the AMT so middle-class families wouldn't fell the bite and making up for the corresponding loss of revenue by raising taxes on the extremely wealthy who currently only pay 15%.

Paying for Tax Fix Divides Dems, GOP

By JIM ABRAMS – Dec 12, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans say it's OK not to cover the $50 billion in revenue losses from Congress' annual alternative minimum tax fix to save millions of families from higher taxes — even as the GOP president counts on revenues from that higher levy to reduce the red ink in his budget.

Senate Republicans, however, are using their filibuster powers to force the Senate into maintaining low rates for investment fund managers and accepting an unpaid-for AMT fix.

Republicans, said GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, "will not raise taxes in exchange for blocking a tax that was not meant to be."

Congress enacted "paygo" into law during the first President Bush's administration. But that law, which fostered the balanced budgets during the late Clinton years, was allowed to lapse in 2002, when Republicans were working on the Bush tax cuts.