WEEKLY EDITORIAL RECAP

Friday

TAX REFORM

The one sure way to trigger a revolt over the current federal income tax system is to end the practice of withholding. If you never receive your entire paycheck in the first place -- if a portion of your earnings is automatically confiscated and sent to Washington -- it's as if you never really had it, at all.

But imagine if wage earners had to sit down April 15 and write a check to cover their annual income tax bill.

The system would collapse -- and our Washington representatives would be scurrying for their bunkers, frantically fleeing the ensuing hordes.

Unfortunately, withholding isn't going away any time soon. But another tax policy also threatens to trigger massive public outrage ...

On Thursday morning, the Senate failed to reach an agreement on fixing the dreaded alternative minimum tax ...

If it isn't fixed, the tax -- designed to ensure filers don't take too many legal deductions to lower their obligations -- will subject some 25 million people to higher levies, an average of $2,000 apiece.

Senate Democrats argued that changes in the AMT must be offset by other tax increases. Senate Republicans refused to go along.

"Unless we act," said Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, "it will destroy the entire tax system."

Those words apparently struck fear in the hearts of his colleagues -- the current system, after all, allows Washington's Democratic big spenders to mainline other people's money. ...

So rather than risk angering millions of taxpaying voters, Senate Democrats on Thursday evening abandoned their game of chicken and caved to Republicans, agreeing to block expansion of the AMT without any concurrent tax hikes.

Good. We'll now see if the House goes along. And if Speaker Nancy Pelosi and crew seriously ponder Sen. Baucus' comment, they'll be aboard in a New York minute.