If you’re a normal person, you might find the phrase “Republican SALT Caucus” unintentionally hilarious. One of our editors literally laughed out loud when she first saw it in last week’s copy. But yes — this circus is real. The so-called SALT Caucus is pushing to bust the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, a move that overwhelmingly benefits wealthy constituents and donors in high-tax blue states.
For the past two weeks, these Republicans have whined that the Ways and Means Committee won’t give them a deal in exchange for their votes. Now they’ve decided to bypass the committee and take their case straight to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). But they’ve failed to articulate a clear demand — and if they keep posturing, they’re heading for a painful lesson in how negotiations work under this speaker.
That’s the nature of legislating: Virtually everyone besides the fiscal hawks wants more for themselves and their districts.
The self-styled SALT Caucus lacks formal structure, but its members share a common trait: They all represent deep-blue, high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, and California.
No official list exists, but based on public comments and internal chatter, the ringleaders include New Jersey Reps. Jeff Van Drew, Christopher Smith, and Thomas Kean Jr.; California Reps. Kevin Kiley, David Valadao, Vince Fong, and Young Kim; and New York Reps. Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, Nick Langworthy, Andrew Garbarino, Anthony D’Esposito, Claudia Tenney, and Donald Trump’s favorite, Elise Stefanik.
Of these, Kim, Lawler, LaLota, and Garbarino consider themselves “the saltiest” and even ejected New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis from one of their meetings for saying the 300% increase in the currently proposed annual deductions cap, from $10,000 to $30,000, was acceptable to her. Incredibly, Malliotakis was the only member of the SALT Caucus who has a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, which is charged with setting these numbers.
The funny thing about the SALT faction’s rejection of a $20,000 hike is they’ve not provided an actual number that would please them. They’ve only said that $30,000 “is insulting” and that without their votes for the president’s budget, the caps expire along with Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. They’ll tell you this fact makes their hand stronger, but the reality is that the tax cuts expiring would mean a massive tax hike, and the small number of wealthy but influential citizens who would benefit from no cap would end up paying more in the wash.
The few demands the SALT Caucus has floated shift wildly depending on which member is speaking.
Mike Lawler, for example, wants to raise the cap to $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for married couples. That’s not just bad optics — it’s political malpractice. You don’t need a Ph.D. in political science to know that tax breaks for people paying $200,000 in state and local taxes don’t exactly scream “working-class Republican.” To most of the GOP conference — and certainly to red-state voters — that proposal sounds like a bad joke.
What’s more, Lawler’s demands are different from Kim’s, which are different from LaLota’s, and on and on.
The SALT Republicans claim it’s up to Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) to make them an offer, but he’s not the one with the ask here — they are. Further, they don’t even agree on what that ask is, except for “more.” And as mentioned, they kicked out the only member they had who is actually on Smith’s committee.
If you don’t have a proposal — just a demand for more — it’s hard to see how you’re actually in a caucus at all, unless the SALT Caucus is just united by opposition to Trump’s budget. How, for example, are they different from the California Republicans who don’t want the Congress to talk away former President Joe Biden’s energy handouts? Or those who want
this tax credit or that one? Do they get to have their demands met, or else?
Now that the committee has finished its overnight, 18-hour markup, dozens of members will be chased down the halls (and even convinced) by lobbyists who tell them this carve-out is necessary or that subsidy is essential. That’s the nature of legislating: Virtually everyone besides the fiscal hawks wants more for themselves and their districts.
And if you break for this group’s ill-defined demands (whatever they are), how do you say no to the others? What if they threaten to withhold their votes? You’ve opened the door for chaos.
Don’t forget this whole thing is going to the Senate when the House is finished. Several Republican senators have signaled they’re a “no” on the House bill right now, and that’s fine because guess what: It’s going to be changing!
So the SALT guys are still at it. They wouldn’t even talk to the committee before everyone was all together in Thursday’s meeting, which included the fiscal hawks over at the Freedom Caucus as well. Those guys, by the way, don’t want to raise the SALT cap a single dollar, and they’re eager to bust their blue-state friends back down to size (but are loath to incur the party conference’s wrath by sinking a final deal). It’s almost a good-cop/bad-cop dynamic.
Enter Mike Johnson. To read the coverage in D.C. newsletters, the SALT Caucus going around the committee chairman to deal directly with the speaker is some kind of win for them. A cursory knowledge of Johnson’s actual dealmaking abilities, however, pops that balloon right quick.
Johnson’s big problem is not that he’s intentionally duplicitous; it’s that he says “yes” to
everyone — even when he should not or simply cannot. This habit is terrible in negotiation and has nearly sabotaged his very few wins this year. The reality is that much of what little has been accomplished in this Congress has been because Johnson stepped back from the negotiations.
Now he’s supposed to save the day for the main part of the president’s entire legislative agenda. Seems like quite the request! Nobody was talking when members left Thursday’s great big meeting. Just another day in the salt mines!
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