In a strange development in late May, a bipartisan group of Senators on the Finance Committee cosponsored legislation introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) to permanently repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax. However, the legislation does not include provisions to offset the huge cost of the bill. While there is broad consensus that the AMT needs to be reformed as it continues to creep into the consciousness and tax returns of middle-class Americans, a full repeal would be horrible tax policy that would once again give a huge tax break to the super-wealthy and is the wrong choice when Congress is attempting to control federal deficits. First introduced in 1969 and affecting only a few hundred people, the AMT was originally designed to prevent extremely wealthy individuals from avoiding paying any income tax with the excessive use of tax deductions and shelters. However, because two key aspects of the tax (the income exclusion and tax brackets) were not indexed for inflation, it has gradually begun to affect millions of upper-middle class Americans - something it was never intended to do. By 2010, approximately 30 million tax filers (about 26 percent of all filers) will be impacted by the AMT, according to the Tax Policy Center. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has calculated full repeal of the AMT will cost $611 billion over the next ten years (2006 - 2015). According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities if the President's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are extended, as they are likely to be, the cost would jump to $954 billion. This is a tremendous cost to the federal government during a time of huge deficits and when future obligations, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Social Security, and rising health care costs, will put tremendous strain on the federal budget. The CBO, Government Accountability Office (GAO), and many other analysts have repeatedly warned throughout this year that current fiscal policies are unsustainable over the long-term. These warnings have come without assuming repeal of the AMT, which will only exacerbate the long-term problems already facing the country. The cosponsors of S. 1103 are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The AMT needs to be reformed, but it would only take simple and small changes to ensure the tax would meet its original purpose of preventing a small number of extremely wealthy Americans from paying no income taxes. Full repeal of the tax is simply unacceptable. While the bipartisan support for S. 1103 is disconcerting, its chances for becoming law are slim. The cost of full repeal alone would necessitate that it passes outside the reconciliation process this year, thus requiring 60 votes to pass. Charles Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has stated his intention to include a one-year fix for the AMT in his committee's reconciliation bill at a cost of $30 billion. This would allow more time to implement a responsible reform option rather than full repeal.