Republican Senate rolls back SALT cap to $10,000 in Trump budget bill

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Jun 16, 2025

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A Republican-controlled Senate committee Monday rolled back the SALT deduction cap to $10,000 in its first draft of President Donald Trump’s sprawling budget bill, a dramatic reversal from the $40,000 that was painstakingly negotiated just last month by a group of GOP lawmakers mostly from the New York suburbs.

The Senate finance committee penciled in the $10,000 figure, which would represent no change from the current cap on writing off state and local taxes, in its initial language of the Big Beautiful Bill that includes trillions in tax and spending cuts.

Westchester County Rep. Mike Lawler, R-New York, one of a handful of Republican House members who vowed to dramatically raise the cap, wasted no time rejecting the $10,000 Senate proposal.

“Consider this the response to the Senate….DEAD ON ARRIVAL,” Lawler tweeted.

“Everyone knows this 10K number will have to go up,” added Rep. Elise Stefanik. “And it will.”

Lawler and other Republicans from affluent suburban districts in New York, New Jersey and California ran on the ironclad promise they would get rid of the cap on SALT altogether or at least dramatically increase it because it mostly hurts their constituents in high-tax blue states.

Democratic critics predict Lawler and his allies will eventually cave and agree to whatever deal Trump and other Republican allies agree to.

The GOP SALT rebels provided House Speaker Mike Johnson with the narrow 215-214 margin he needed to pass the bill before a Memorial Day deadline. But now the action has shifted to the Senate where Republicans are tinkering with SALT and other key provisions, including potentially deeper cuts to Medicaid.

Both chambers of Congress need to pass the exact same bill, a process called reconciliation that would allow the Senate to evade a bill-killing filibuster.

Lawler and Rep. Nick LaLota, R-New York, have repeatedly vowed to vote against the bill if it doesn’t include the higher SALT cap. They say the increase to $40,000 is non-negotiable and believe they have significant leverage because the cap would expire completely if no bill is passed.

Senate Republicans, who hold a 53-47 majority, counter that everything is on the table to win the 50 votes they need to pass the bill.

Several key senators are fiscal hawks who insist they won’t vote for the bill unless it includes much deeper spending cuts and fewer goodies like the higher SALT cap that would expand the federal budget deficit.

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