AMT: Bad for you, bad for me

Interesting article at CNN Money: Why middle America is getting hit with a tax for the rich - Nov. 10, 2005, stunned me with this quote:

To give you a sense of just who might get caught, this year only 1.8 percent of married couples with two kids and an adjusted gross income between $75,000 and $100,000 will be subject to AMT. Next year, that number jumps to 73.4 percent.

Now, we've been hit with the AMT for the last couple of years (add living in New York to some extraordinary income situations like cashing in a parent's 457 and pension). The most immediate effect has been that our deduction for mortgage interest is mostly wiped out. There's some there, but not much.

Given that one party has controlled the legislative and executive branches for the past five years, you'd think that perhaps, just maybe, they'd take some actual action on eliminating or reducing this problem which will hit large numbers of their constituents in an election year. But they haven't.