House Republican suggests raising taxes on top earners to help 'stalled' reconciliation bill

A House Republican who has been a central figure pushing for an increase to the state and local tax deduction caps, known as SALT, said increasing taxes on the nation’s top earners could help move President Trump’s “stalled” megabill. 

The congressman, Nick LaLota of New York, posted Saturday on X that placing the top tax rate on individuals earning over $609,350 and married couples earning over $731,200 could help advance the legislation

“The One Big Beautiful Bill has stalled — and it needs wind in its sails,” he said. 

“It’s a fiscally responsible move that reflects the priorities of the new Republican Party: protect working families, address the deficit, fix the unfair SALT cap, and safeguard programs like Medicaid and SNAP — without raising taxes on the middle class,” Mr. LaLota continued. 

Mr. LaLota and other members of the SALT Caucus, which is comprised of blue-state Republicans from New York, California and New Jersey, have pushed for an increase on the SALT caps as part of the budget reconciliation process. 

While the House Ways and Means Committee’s portion of the broader legislative package included a compromise increase to the cap of $30,000, which is triple what the current cap is, members of the caucus have rebuked the offer and have threatened to vote against Mr. Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” if it makes it to the House floor. 

However, their demands are at odds with fiscal hawks in the House GOP, who want to see firmer commitments to steep spending cuts right away in the colossal bill. They also don’t want to include more spending in the bill, which increasing the SALT caps would do. 

Mr. LaLota argued that letting that tax provision expire, which is not widely popular with Republican leadership, would breathe “$300 billion of new life into the effort” and could help pay for an increase in the SALT cap beyond the proposal currently baked into the Ways and Means’ portion of the bill without carving deeper into Medicaid and food-assistance benefits. 

But the bill is currently snarled by hardline members of the House Budget Committee, who on Friday tanked the measure from advancing out of committee in search of hard commitments to reaching the GOP’s goal of at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma — members of the House Freedom Caucus — contend that the bill in its current form is front-loaded with spending that adds to the deficit, and cost-saving measures are deployed only until after Mr. Trump’s presidency is over. 

They want to see the enactment date of Medicaid work requirements catapulted for the proposed 2029 start date and the phasing out of green subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act, which are slated to continue until 2032. 

Mr. Roy and others were set to work over the weekend and meet with White House officials to find a path on how to tweak the bill. 

The lawmaker said during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” show that while there has been a lot of progress made on the broader bill, the main focus is correcting the spending cut side of the measure.

Mr. Roy and others on the Budget Committee are slated to meet again Sunday night to once more try and advance the package to an eventual vote on the House floor. 

“We all want tax relief, particularly for hardworking Americans and small businesses, but I’m not going to get put over the barrel because everybody’s freaking out that we got to deal with the taxes,” Mr. Roy said. “Especially at the top end of the bracket and so forth if we’re not doing what we need to do on the spending side.”