FILE PHOTO: U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 21, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) lashed out Monday afternoon at Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) for attacking the GOP plan on the state and local tax deduction, or SALT.
Under Republican proposals for President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill," the limit on the amount that can be deducted from federal taxes to pay state and local taxes, an animating issue for New York politicians, would be raised from $10,000 to $30,000, although the tax break would be limited to people making under $400,000 a year.
"When it comes to the SALT Cap, I’ve been clear: FULL repeal or no deal," posted Hochul this morning, in response to the new reporting on the proposal from the GOP. "Now we’ve learned New York’s GOP delegation has utterly failed to stand up for their districts. This tiny increase is a massive failure."
Stefanik, another vocal advocate for eliminating the SALT cap, hit back at Hochul on X.
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"Kathy Hochul, the WORST Governor in America, chimes in to remind voters that her OWN DEMOCRAT PARTY — a party that she alleged leads in NY State — FAILED year after year to raise the SALT cap and deliver tax relief after falsely promising to do so," Stefanik wrote. "Instead Kathy Hochul continues to ensure NY leads the nation as the highest taxed state in the country crushing families and small businesses."
"Not only is this not the final number, but NY Republicans will deliver on raising the SALT cap and cutting taxes to help NYers unlike Kathy Hochul and her Far Left single party Democrat rule who have driven the state into the ground with reckless tax and spend policies," she continued.
The SALT cap was initially passed by Republicans as part of Trump's 2017 tax cut bill. At the time, the thinking was that because Democratic-controlled states tend to have higher taxes, it would be a politically pain-free source of revenue to offset other tax cuts.
However, because the SALT deduction is almost exclusively claimed by higher-income households, the GOP found itself under fire from wealthy donors who lived in higher-tax states like New York, New Jersey, and California, and ended up losing large numbers of seats in those areas during the 2018 wave election. In the 2024 election, Trump vowed to undo the cap.