Free Republic

You might think that—given the chance to chide the star of a competing network—CNN would have called out MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow over her failed, overhyped “scoop” on Donald Trump’s taxes. But nary a discouraging word about Maddow could be heard on CNN this morning. Liberal media solidarity more important than beating the competition? Instead, commenting this morning on the release of Donald Trump’s 2005 tax return, CNN’s Chris Cuomo described the Alternative Minimum Tax [AMT] he paid as a “benefit” to Trump. It was just the opposite. The AMT Alternative Minimum Tax is designed to prevent people with large incomes...

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials. With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November, the proposal adds a new and populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid. Mr....

More than 20 million families will be spared an extra $2,000 tax hit on average after Congress excluded them from a higher alternative tax originally aimed at untaxed multimillionaires. An eleventh-hour 352-64 vote on Wednesday to put a one-year freeze on growth of the alternative minimum tax shields many middle- and upper-middle- income taxpayers from first exposure to the tax. In 2006, it affected 4 million. President Bush plans to sign the bill into law. Republicans, backed by a presidential veto threat against any tax increase, insisted that the AMT was never meant to affect millions of people and thus...