Congress
Mar-a-Lago meetings to include an offer on SALT cap
The incoming Trump administration plans to offer an expansion of the state and local tax deduction to Republican lawmakers from New York, New Jersey and California who are heading to Mar-a-Lago on Saturday for a sit-down with the president-elect.
While exact details weren’t available, one proposal being discussed would allow married couples to deduct $20,000 of their state and local taxes from their federal income taxes. Under current law, married couples can deduct only $10,000, which is the same for single taxpayers.
In return, the so-called SALT Republicans will be expected to fall in line behind a sweeping tax bill the GOP hopes to enact later this year, two sources familiar with the new administration’s thinking told Blue Light News, who were granted anonymity to discuss the internal strategizing.
The lawmakers — who represent politically competitive, high-tax districts where constituents have been dinged by the SALT cap — haven’t ruled out pushing for other changes, though.
The talks will be just one part of a broader set of discussions President-elect Donald Trump plans to hold in Florida this weekend that will also include members of the House Freedom Caucus and the chairs of important House committees.
However, the outcome of the conversations with SALT Republicans promises to be particularly important for the GOP’s plans to pass an extension of expiring provisions of the tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first administration.
Members of the coalition stalled tax legislation in the 118th Congress several times over their demands for SALT relief, which is otherwise widely unpopular in the Republican conference. And, in the GOP’s slim two-seat majority, the group now wields tremendous leverage again — and House leadership knows it.
The issue “will definitely come up. I think that’s a big sticking point for the members that will be there,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who is part of the SALT caucus and also a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
Malliotakis said that New York Republicans would be meeting on Wednesday to go over their strategy ahead of the meetings in Florida.
“We’re going to go over the impact SALT has had in each of our districts, how many people take SALT versus the standard deduction, what are the income levels that are affected,” said Malliotakis.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) confirmed to Blue Light News on Tuesday that he would also be part of the group of lawmakers making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.
We’re going to “have broad discussions but obviously SALT will be part of it,” Lawler said.
It’s possible that the group will push for something more than doubling the deduction for married couples, which the lawmakers call a “marriage penalty.” The New Yorkers are quick to point out that Trump himself pledged at a campaign rally in Long Island to expand SALT relief — and that the blue districts they represent are some of the most competitive in the country.
Former New York Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro, who lost his reelection last year, told Blue Light News in December that voters might have returned him to Congress if Republicans had achieved something on SALT.
“I think the logical way to do it is to, at a minimum, double it and get rid of the marriage penalty elements of it,” said Molinaro. “What I would say is that’s the floor, I think, from a constituent’s perspective, from a voter’s perspective.”
Malliotakis said that changes in the alternative minimum taxes for upper-income taxpayers, which would further erode the value of the SALT deduction and were repealed in 2017, “cannot come back.”
“That’s a red line for me,” she said.
House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who will lead the charge on tax policies this year, has acknowledged Trump’s desire to address the SALT cap. Yet, Smith has also asserted that Republicans cannot fully repeal the limit, which they put in place in 2017 to help pay for their Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017.
The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated in 2021 that a full repeal of the cap would cost $900 billion.
“That’s how [Trump] does things differently,” Smith told Blue Light News, referring to the meetings scheduled for Mar-a-Lago. “He’s going to have all the committee chairmen down there on Saturday, too, the Freedom Caucus, so being there to listen to him.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) will run for reelection in 2028, his campaign told Blue Light News on Wednesday, reversing a promise to serve just two full terms in the chamber.
Appointed by then-Gov. Nikki Haley to serve out the last two years of outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint’s Senate term in 2012, Scott had long said that 2022 would mark his final bid for the Senate.
He easily won reelection that year, besting Democratic state lawmaker Krystle Matthews by more than 25 percentage points. Scott then ran for president but abandoned his short-lived bid for the White House before the Iowa caucuses.
He was briefly considered to serve as now-President Donald Trump’s running mate and has since emerged as a key White House ally in the Senate.
“And I’ll say without any question that as I think about my own reelection in 2028, I think about all the lessons I’ve learned on the campaign trail for all these other candidates, and frankly, even in South Carolina,” Scott told the Charleston, South Carolina-based Post and Courier, which was first to report his reelection plans.
Hopes for a quick vote on Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s nomination as Homeland Security secretary hang on questions about secretive travel the Oklahoma Republican undertook as a House member a decade ago that are now being examined by his Senate colleagues.
Mullin was questioned extensively about the matter Wednesday by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Testifying under oath Wednesday, Mullin said he participated in what he described as “official travel” and a “classified trip” as part of a “special program inside the House” that went from 2015 to 2016. He said he was not a member of the House Intelligence Committee at the time and refused to answer further questions outside of a classified setting.
The attention on the matter came after Peters raised questions about Mullin’s past claims suggesting he had traveled to war zones and had first-hand exposure to combat environments despite his lack of a military background.
After the hearing adjourned Wednesday afternoon, Mullin joined Paul, Peters and other members of the committee in the Senate’s classified briefing facility.
“I’m one of these people who think that we silo off too much information from the public,” Paul told reporters after the hearing. “When we’re going to war, they tell eight people, it’s like, ‘Oh, we’ve notified Congress.’ So I don’t think that is adequate.”
“It makes people curious when you say, I’m doing secret missions for somebody, but I won’t tell you who, and only four people in the world know about those,” Paul added.
Mullin said only four people were “read into” the program in question and declined to say publicly what agencies or committees were involved.
“It’s a little difficult for us to go ask about a program that has no name and we have nobody that we know to talk to about it,” Peters said before Mullin agreed to the classified meeting. “So I don’t know how we would begin doing this without your cooperation.”
The questions about the shadowy travel erupted after Mullin’s nomination suddenly turned rocky after Paul questioned his temperament and fitness for office based on his past comments and behavior.
Paul later confirmed he would oppose Mullin’s nomination but said he still intended to hold a committee vote Thursday. To get through the panel with Paul opposed, Mullin will need the support of at least one Democrat.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has suggested he is inclined to support Mullin but declined to confirm Wednesday he would vote for him. Fetterman was among the senators spotted entering the classified meeting following the hearing.
“I’m willing to hold the vote tomorrow, but you brought this up that you were on a super secret mission,” Paul told Mullin at the hearing.
“No, I did not say super secret,” Mullin responded. “I said it was classified.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he is confident Sen. Markwayne Mullin will be confirmed as the next secretary of Homeland Security despite a contentious exchange with fellow GOP Sen. Rand Paul at a hearing Wednesday.
Paul, the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, sharply questioned the Oklahoma senator about past remarks that he “understood” why Paul suffered a heinous assault from a neighbor in 2017. Mullin refused to apologize for the remark.
“Those two obviously have some history, and it’s, you know, personal stuff,” Thune said. “They’ve got to work through it. I mean, in the end, this is about the job, and it’s about making sure that we got the right person there. I think Markwayne is the right person for the job.”
Asked if he was still confident Mullin can be confirmed, Thune said, “Yeah.”
Paul has scheduled a committee vote on Mullin for Thursday. While Paul’s vote is in serious doubt, Mullin could win over Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has expressed support for Mullin previously and said Wednesday he would approach the nomination “with an open mind.”
“I haven’t been rocked by some mic-dropping kind of moments,” Fetterman told reporters after the hearing.
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