Yet another effort to alleviate the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap died in the House today, with a bipartisan set of 225 House members – including most New Jersey Democrats – voting against a procedural motion that would have allowed for consideration of the bill.
If it had been successful, the bill would have let married couples deduct $20,000 in state and local taxes on their joint tax return for one year, double the $10,000 cap imposed in the GOP’s 2017 tax bill. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), a co-sponsor of the bill who represents a suburban district heavily impacted by the SALT cap, said that the bill would help relieve financial pressure on residents of high-tax states like New Jersey.
“This bill begins to address the issue of double taxation that New Jerseyans, New Yorkers, and countless families far and wide have been hindered by for nearly seven years – seven years too long,” Kean said in remarks on the House floor. “New Jersey families need tax relief right now, and this specific approach to doubling the joint returns cap is a critical and necessary step to taking the tax burden off the backs of our neighbors.”
But Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson), who has similarly fought for SALT relief, called the bill nothing but a “fig leaf” that masks the Republican caucus’s own responsibility for enacting the deduction cap in 2017.
“This badly flawed measure is a far cry from middle-class tax relief, and it is really the bare minimum we could do,” Pascrell said on the House floor immediately following Kean’s remarks. “This certainly is no way to enact tax policy. This is no way to treat tens of millions of Americans and communities.”
Pascrell was one of seven New Jersey Democrats to vote against the procedural motion, while Kean and both of his fellow New Jersey Republicans supported it. Two other Democrats, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) and Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff), did not cast votes on the motion despite being present at today’s voting session, even though Sherrill was a co-sponsor of the bill.
It’s worth noting that it’s common practice for members of the minority party to oppose votes on procedural motions, and that the vote today also applied to a separate GOP-led resolution “denouncing the harmful, anti-American energy policies of the Biden administration” – a resolution that most Democrats, of course, found objectionable.
“Rep. Sherrill has been fighting to repeal Trump’s SALT deduction cap since she was elected to Congress and House Democrats passed SALT relief twice while in the majority – it’s a shame that Speaker [Mike] Johnson set this legislation up to fail procedurally, all to protect Trump’s tax increase on New Jerseyans,” a spokesperson for Sherrill said.
This story was updated at 10:38 p.m. with comment from Sherrill’s office.