The other option is to clip tax expenditures on the non-AMT side as a way to finance AMT reform. Many of these tax expenditures were put in with full knowledge that they could never really be taken. It was easier to rely on the AMT than to put in descent tax expenditure caps - thus preserving comity on the tax writing comities against interest group driven charges of "class warfare." That being said, I am not sure there is a way out of this - since the action required would be capping tax expenditures and facing up to those charges. That would take political courage and I just don't see that in abundance.