WASHINGTON � President-elect Barack Obama's Democratic allies on Capitol Hill want to use his jobs creation bill to extend a middle class tax cut despite concerns from Obama's transition team that it won't boost the economy.

New York Democrat Charles Rangel, Congress' top tax writer, says lawmakers feel strongly about using Obama's economic recovery package to advance the annual fix to the alternative minimum tax now instead of later in the year.

It'll cost about $70 billion to fix the AMT, which means other job-creating tax cuts would have to be trimmed.

The AMT was designed in 1969 to make sure wealthy taxpayers pay at least some tax. Now it threatens to snag about 20 million taxpayers for whom it was never intended.