After the Republicans capped on federal deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) in their 2017 tax bill, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said she is hopeful SALT reform will make its way into President Joe Biden‘s American Jobs Plan infrastructure bill, which is now before Congress.
The Republican tax law mandated a $10,000 ceiling on SALT deductions, drawing the ire of blue states like California and New York where upper-middle class families were penalized due to high taxes and home values.
“Hopefully we can get it into the bill,” Pelosi said in a Thursday press conference referring to SALT reform. “I never give up hope for something like that [that] means so much to the American people.”
Several prominent Democrats from New Jersey, New York and even Pelosi’s own California have said that if SALT reform isn’t in the new infrastructure bill, they will vote it down. “No SALT, no deal,” said Rep.Tom Suozzi (D-New York) in a statement after Pelosi’s speech.
Pelosi has since called the 2017 Republican tax measures “mean-spirited” and “politically targeted” to hurt wealthy, Democratic-majority states disproportionately. “So I’m sympathetic to their position,” Pelosi later said. “I would say that I would withhold any comment about whether you would vote for a bill or not until you see what the bill is,” she added. “But, again, I share their exuberance about the subject of the SALT tax.”
