Post Keeps Missing the Point About Alternative Minimum Tax

June 8th, 2007 5:50 PM

Washington Post reporter Lori Montgomery must not be reading Newsbusters.

Because this is the second time she painted the Democrats as the saviors of the middle-class for wanting to reform the alternative minimum tax, but neglected to inform her readers that they are the same Democrats who voted against the full repeal of the AMT in 1999.

Her June 8 story referred to House Democrats as “looking to spare millions of middle class families from the expensive bite of the alternative minimum tax …”

In it, Montgomery cited five Democratic congressman and one left-wing think tank, but only one Republican congressman. Two of those Democrats: Reps. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) and Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) were in the House in 1999 and voted against the repeal, which passed in both houses, but was vetoed by President Clinton.

The June 8 piece strongly resembled Montgomery’s earlier April report, in which she also cited Leonard Burman of the liberal Tax Policy Center.