GOP complaining that there aren’t spending cuts to go along with the tax cuts. That’s hilarious considering that no cuts offset any of the 2001/2003/2009 tax plans. Now, they’re suddenly demanding a dismantling of the safety net and programs that are funded separately (via the payroll tax).

Mind you that the bulk of the cost for the enacted 2012 tax act is due to making permanent the AMT patch. That’s $1.8 trillion over 10 years.

Here’s how the math really works out.

Without the patch, income is subjected to the AMT at a far lower amount. The CBO and JCT both look at law as it exists when making projections. So, when they forecast looking out, the AMT captured more and more income tax revenues due to hitting at a lower income tax level. Temporary patches just pushed the number forward, but eventually the AMT would hit at the lower level.

A permanent fix, as here, means that the income is now permanently off the books but is treated as a cost based on the law as in effect on 12/31.

We would never see that income in any event because of the annual patch dance done by Congress, but the CBO and JCT have to treat it in any event because that’s how the law is written.

The AMT portion simply makes permanent what Congress has been doing for decades.

Bump that off the final CBO/JCT and there’s still a sizable cost ($2.1t over 10 years), but that’s again compared to the pre-2001 tax rates that just took effect for a day (the law as written - where tax rates rose to the pre-2001 levels). This act makes permanent the 2001 tax rates for everyone except those making over $400k/$450k.

For all of their whining, the GOP got much of what they’ve been calling for all along (permanently reducing the tax rates and making permanent the tax cuts so as to leverage future spending cuts - the back door approach to reducing government spending). They got the tax side done for the most part, but they’re bitching that the tax act didn’t include the spending cuts.

That’ll be the battleground going into the new fiscal cliff talks that will conclude in the hours leading up to the next due date - 2 months from now.