The Senate Finance Committee just made a major revision to H.R. 1 — President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" — that multiple House Republicans are likely to oppose. And now one says the change may end up killing the legislation altogether.
On Monday, Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman tweeted that the Senate's version of the bill repeals the $40,000 state and local tax (SALT) deduction that many Republicans insisted on, and reverts it back to the initial cap of $10,000. Should that $10,000 SALT cap remain in the final bill the Senate sends back to the House, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) promised to oppose it with several of his colleagues.
"Anything less than $40,000 will result in my no vote," LaLota said. "$39,999.99 would result in a no vote from me. I've been clear about my communications with my own leadership with the Senate over there. They can't water that down."
"That was a hard-fought negotiation that happened for four months. And $40,000 was the compromise number. It's not the starting point for where the Senate could then whittle it down," he continued. "$40,000 is the number that if they send it back a dollar less, we're gonna vote no on it and our five votes are gonna take that bill down."
Many lawmakers from blue states, including both Democratic and Republican members of Congress, have been pushing for the SALT deduction cap to be increased from $10,000 (the previous cap in Trump's 2017 tax cuts) to $40,000 for those making less than $400,000 per year, given that blue states tend to have higher state and local taxes. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) recently went toe-to-toe with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in defense of a higher SALT deduction when the House was negotiating whether to raise the cap. And LaLota pointed out that if H.R. 1 fails, the initial $10,000 SALT deduction limit would also be eliminated, meaning "unlimited" SALT deductions for all Americans.
"The result of that, if the bill crashes, ultimately, we'll get unlimited SALT back," he said. "So if the senators don't like $40,000, they really won't like unlimited because that's what comes back in the start of 2027."
The House version of the bill narrowly passed the chamber last month on a 215-214 vote, meaning if the Republicans in the House SALT caucus all oppose the legislation, it wouldn't have the votes to pass. Sherman noted in his initial tweet that the new $10,000 SALT cap was a "negotiating point," suggesting the number wasn't set in stone.
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Watch the video of LaLota's remarks below, or by clicking this link.