The AMT The Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, is the provision in the tax code that requires filers to calculate their taxes in two ways: the usual way, with the usual deductions and exemptions; and an alternate way that disallows most exemptions and deductions, but gives one big standard deduction instead. The idea is to […]

More of This, Please The Bush campaign raised a stink over Kerry’s not releasing his military records immediately after saying he would do so during Sunday’s Meet the Press interview. The records are out: “I fought under that flag and I saw that flag draped over the coffins of friends,” Kerry said. “I’m tired of […]

Is Your Family “Hardworking”? Tuesday, Brad DeLong explored the mystery of “Hardworking Individuals and Married Couples.” Who are these people? Mark Schmitt recently spotted them in a Treasury Department Press Release: Treasury didn’t use the standard categories that would go into a distributional analysis, such as income quintiles or households with income in certain ranges. […]

Higher Rates in Europe, Too? The markets took to heart Greenspan’s comments about the danger of deflation receding, and bond yields rose to their highest level in months. Some of Morgan Stanley’s European economists think that the same may be true for Europe – that we’re now definitely at the bottom of the interest rate […]

Greenspan Agrees I’m not saying that this is the definitive word (because I certainly believe that he has been wrong about things before), but apparently Greenspan agrees with my earlier assessment that the danger of deflation is behind us. Kash

Powell Responds I’ve commented on revlations about Powell in Woodward’s new book, so it’s only fair that I also highlight Powell’s denial: Powell also said he cooperated with Woodward — at the behest of the White House. “We all talked to Woodward. It was part of our instructions from the White House,” Powell said. “It […]

I Can’t Explain It So I’ll just relay it: Bush led Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, 51 percent to 46 percent in the survey of likely voters, which was conducted Friday through Sunday. The survey interviewed 1,003 adults, including a subsample of 767 respondents deemed most likely to vote in November. When consumer activist Ralph […]

Today’s Howler Sommerby finds something of a contradiction: RICE V. BUSH: Thanks to an alert e-mailer, here’s one more highlight from Bush’s press conference. Our reader emitted those low, mordant chuckles when President Bush said the obvious: BUSH (4/13/04): Now, in the, what’s called the PDB, there was a warning about bin Laden’s desires on […]

Worse Than You Thought From Woodward, on 60 Minutes last night: “They describe in detail the war plan for Bandar. And so Bandar, who’s skeptical because he knows in the first Gulf War we didn’t get Saddam out, so he says to Cheney and Rumsfeld, ‘So Saddam this time is gonna be out, period?’ And […]

Powell May Be Next to Join the DisgruntledTM My initial list of The DisgruntledTM (people who work or worked in and around the Bush White House who have been critical of the administration’s policy-making) is in this post; commenters ably filled out the list. We know they are disgruntled for there can be no other […]