The AMT blame game begins

In a straight party line vote, the House version of the AMT patch attracted just 46 votes of the 60 needed for cloture. There were 48 votes against cloture. None of the Democratic Presidential candidates were on hand to cast a vote, so it was never close.

To put this into perspective, the increase alone in AMT collections slated for next year is nearly $50 billion. That's 23 million taxpayers paying an extra of $2,000 each. The entire federal estate tax, on the other hand, will raise a scant $21 billion.