Moderate House Republicans from high-tax blue states are warning senators that they will not give the “big, beautiful bill” a final stamp of approval if the Senate changes their proposal for the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap.
The shot across the Capitol came shortly after Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters the upper chamber would likely tweak the SALT provision in the mammoth measure in one of several alterations.
The House bill raises the SALT deduction cap to $40,000 — quadruple the $10,000 deduction cap in current law. Several moderates in the House from New York, New Jersey and California have said they would not support the package unless it included substantial SALT relief.
Those members are now warning that any changes to the provision could prevent the bill from passing the House once it is sent back from the Senate.
“If the Senate unwinds the House’s $40K SALT deal, it’s like digging up buried radioactive waste—reckless and sure to contaminate the whole One Big Beautiful Bill,” Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) wrote on social platform X. “Best to leave it alone.”
He elaborated on his comments later, telling reporters he would encourage the Senate to keep their deal in place.
“The reason I’ve chosen that analogy is because the House took four months to get to where we could finally compromise, negotiate and settle on bill language as it relates to SALT and other interlocking and related provisions. So the Senate to disrupt that is to undo a lot of that painful work, to rip off some scabs, and to essentially restart the very painful process that we went through for four months,” he said.
“I would advise them to keep the bill intact. I respect the senators’ prerogatives to exercise their constituents’ priorities, but we worked really hard to get to the compromise bill that we got to, and it’d be a shame to have to restart.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), another member of the group, was more concise: “Let’s be clear — no SALT, no deal.”
“If the Senate changes the negotiated number of $40,000 — it will derail final passage of the bill,” Lawler wrote on X.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who was a key player in brokering a SALT deal in the House, said he spoke with members of the caucus on Wednesday, shortly after Thune signaled changes to their provision, and plans to make their case to the Senate.
“I just talked to my SALT Caucus on the floor and I’m going to go communicate to the Senate, again, it’s a very delicate thing, we have to maintain the equilibrium point that we reached in the House,” Johnson told reporters. “And it took almost a year to get to that point, so I don’t think we can toss that off.”
Asked if there is wiggle room around the $40,000 deduction cap, the Speaker was coy: “I’m about to find out; we’ll see.”
The SALT deduction cap was always expected to be a battle in the Senate.
While a number of vulnerable Republicans in the House care deeply about SALT, Senate Republicans don’t even have members from New York, New Jersey or California.
The issue came up for Senate Republicans at a conference-wide meeting Wednesday, where some were itching to lower the cap but wary of gumming things up for Johnson.
“Our goal isn’t to create a problem for the House, but we also know the Senate will put its mark on the bill,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said.
One Senate Republican indicated that some senators favor forcing the House SALT backers into supporting a lower ceiling but believe the easiest path is for the upper chamber to swallow its pride and defer to Johnson.
“It may be easier to say than do,” the Senate GOP member said. “It would just screw the whole bill.”
This senator said even lowering the ceiling from $40,000 to $30,000 could be risky since it might lead some of the House Republicans to vote against the bill. But the senator also suggested the SALT Republicans in the House could be bluffing.
“Is that enough to get you, because otherwise you say, ‘I’m going to vote against the bill and for a $4 trillion tax increase as a Republican,’” the member continued. “That’s original sin there.”
While Thune is signaling that the chamber will likely change the SALT provision, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) — a former House member and key liaison between the two chambers — is saying the opposite.
“It was a hard fight over there,” Mullin said, pointing to its roughly $300 billion cost. “It’s a big number, but it was something they had to do to try to get the bill passed. We don’t want to do something that would cause it not to pass.”
“The body here is going to work its will,” he continued. “I would be a little [skeptical] about doing too much with SALT.”
House Republicans in the SALT Caucus are warning they aren’t bluffing.
“I wouldn’t bet against a couple of salty Republicans, including a couple of salty New Yorkers,” LaLota said. “I wouldn’t bet against us.”
Pressed on if the Senate should take the SALT Caucus’s comments as a signal that the House will not pass a bill with a lower deduction cap, LaLota responded: “That would be reasonable for them to consider that.”
Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.), another member of the SALT Caucus, expressed confidence.
“The leadership is working and talking to the Senate on a regular basis, and I’m very confident much of what we passed in the House will still be there,” Kim said. “So I’m not going to comment on how I’ll be voting for it till I see the package that comes back to us.”
“We’re already working to ensure that everything that we pass in the House is still kept in the Senate version,” she added.
Asked if there was any wiggle room on their SALT deal, LaLota said: “I’m eager to see what they actually come back with. I don’t know why anybody would logically want to disrupt something that was the result of a lot of hard work, pain, heartache and ultimately compromise,” he added.
When a reporter pointed out that his comments were not a firm no, he responded: “I would love them to increase it. That would be a great idea if they came to us with $50,000, I would endorse it right away.”
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