Democrats are trying to steal the tax issue from Republicans through AMT relief. The Alternative Minimum Tax that originally targeted just 155 people (the so-called uber-rich) now affects millions of taxpaying voters.

Under a proposal presented last week to Democrats on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, families making less than $250,000 a year -- about 98 percent of taxpayers -- would be exempt from the tax. Those earning between $250,000 and about $500,000 would see lower AMT bills, according to Democratic sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan is not final.

To make up the lost revenue, families earning more than $500,000 a year would take a much harder hit from the AMT, as well as other adjustments to the tax code, the sources said. Democrats haven't finalized that part of the proposal. But an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, suggests that the nation's wealthiest families -- less than 1 percent of all taxpayers -- would have to pay 5 to 13 percent more to offset the revenue lost by exempting the middle class from the AMT. . .

At no time did Democrats consider radical ideas like cutting spending or eliminating wasteful and unnecessary pork projects. Then there's this:

"Most middle-class people aren't being hit with it, and they still think of it as a tax for the wealthy," said [pollster Celinda Lake]. . .

To make the AMT work as a campaign issue. . .Democrats recognize that they will have to raise its profile among the approximately 97 percent of families who do not pay it. [Illinois Democrat Rep. Rahm Emanuel] is putting together a strategy.

So not only are they not reducing the impact of the AMT out of fairness, it turns out that if it doesn't buy enough Democrat votes they won't do it at all.