Perhaps the most unrealistic of the White House's assertions was the conceit that Congress would not fix the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The AMT may seem arcane and peripheral, but it looms large in the tax-cut saga. Moreover, it provides one of the clearest examples of how Republicans have hidden their radicalism in a thicket of policy detail. The AMT is a feature of the tax code originally inserted in 1969 to ensure that higher-income taxpayers do not use deductions, exemptions and credits to avoid paying income taxes entirely. Because the AMT is not adjusted for inflation, the share of Americans who must pay it will rise dramatically in the decade ahead—from less than 2% of taxpayers in 2002 to roughly one-third in 2010. In 2001 no one believed that politicians would let this rise occur—certainly not key members of the administration, who began to muse about the need for cutting the AMT down to size before the ink had dried on the 2001 tax cut legislation. Yet for the purpose of making budgetary estimates, the administration assumed that all revenues projected from a rapidly expanding AMT would flow into government coffers.

– Page 56

We can see how far current elites have moved from past practice in the evident shock and dismay of one of the few policy experts to go on record after having spent time in the Bush White House, John DiIulio. As DiIulio noted in his confessional memo, "In eight months, I heard many, many staff discussions, but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no policy white papers on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy substance and analysis. . . . Every modern presidency moves on the fly, but, on social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking." But perhaps DiIulio's most revealing revelation was who was in charge of policy design in the Bush White House—not the Office of Management and Budget, not the White House policy staff, and certainly not the executive departments. Rather, all policy ran through one man, Karl Rove. "Little happens on any issue without Karl's okay, and, often, he supplies such policy substance as the administration puts out," wrote DiIulio. The reason? "The Republican base constituencies, including beltway libertarian policy elites and religious right leaders, trust him to keep Bush '43 from behaving like Bush '41 and moving too far to the center or inching at all center-left."

– Page 159