Extra Tax Break For Rich People A Major Holdup For GOP's 'Big, Beautiful Bill'

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Lawler went at it over the need to appease GOP voters in blue states.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are fighting over how much their “big, beautiful bill” should cut rich people’s taxes — and it’s gotten ugly.

After a long meeting on Thursday morning with members from the various factions of the Republican conference, who have different gripes about the various parts of the legislation, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) identified the federal deduction for state and local taxes, or SALT, as a major hangup.

“Everyone has known that the SALT issue is one of the big ones that we have to resolve,” Johnson told reporters. “It’s one of the key pieces of this equation to sort of meet the equilibrium point that everybody can be satisfied with.”

A bigger SALT deduction would benefit higher-income taxpayers who would already score a permanent extension of lower income tax rates from the big beautiful bill, as Republicans refer to it, which also bestows a $30 million exemption from the estate tax for America’s wealthiest heirs and heiresses. The legislation would offset part of the cost of the tax cuts by cutting $1 trillion from programs that help poor people afford food and medical care.

The SALT issue has festered for years among both Republicans and Democrats from high-tax states like New York and California. Back in 2017, Republicans put a $10,000 cap on the federal deduction for what households pay in tax to their state and local governments.