Representative Nicholas Langworthy, (NY23), Republican representing part of Western New York and the Southern Tier
Telling Half the Story
In a recent constituent email, Rep. Nicholas Langworthy (R‑NY23) took a victory lap over the new GOP budget bill, calling it the one that “finally lifts the crushing SALT cap that has punished New York homeowners for far too long.”
He’s not wrong. The cap on state and local tax deductions, introduced in Trump’s 2017 tax law, has been hitting New Yorkers hard ever since. According to some estimates, it has cost New Yorkers between $12 billion and $15 billion annually. It has also contributed to New York’s balance of payments deficit. New York, like other “donor” states, contributes far more to the federal government than it receives in return.
Langworthy voted yes on the nearly 1,000-page Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, a.k.a. the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” But unlike his downstate Republican colleagues, Mike Lawler and Nick LaLota, Langworthy didn’t fight to expand the SALT deduction. He didn’t join the “SALT caucus” that fought for higher deduction limits. He wasn’t a driving force. He wasn’t even in the passenger seat. He just showed up to vote, and now he wants the credit.
History of SALT
The State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction, part of the federal tax code since 1913, lets taxpayers deduct state and local taxes from their federal return. It was designed to prevent double taxation. For example, paying local property taxes and then getting taxed again by the IRS on the same money.
For decades, residents of high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, and California relied on the full SALT deduction when making major financial decisions, especially how much house they could afford. When Trump and a Republican Congress capped the SALT deduction at $10,000 in 2017, it hit those states hard and upended financial planning. The cap on SALT deductions also widened the gap between what “donor” states such as New York and California send to Washington and what they get back.
Since 2017, efforts to raise or repeal the SALT cap have come mainly from Democrats and a few Republicans in high-tax districts. Trump even promised to abolish the SALT cap during a campaign swing through Long Island last Fall.
The SALTy Republicans
A small group of House Republicans from high-tax states, the “SALTy Republicans”, led the effort to raise the SALT deduction cap. Among the seven New York State Republican congressmen, the most vocal were Nick LaLota (NY‑1) and Mike Lawler (NY‑17). Lawler chaired the SALT Caucus that included a small number of congressmen from other high-tax states. They threatened to block the entire Big, Beautiful Budget bill without SALT relief. Lawler told the Senate negotiators, essentially, “No SALT, no deal.” Since the Republican margin in the House is only a few votes, Trump and Speaker Johnson needed the New Yorkers’ votes to get the bill across the finish line.
LaLota and Lawler badly needed SALT relief to bolster their re-election chances in next year’s election. The Cook Political Report rates NY‑1 as R+4 and NY‑17 as “lean Republican”. These are not safe seats for the incumbents, especially in the midterm elections when the party out of power usually gains seats in the House
The number of New York Republican representatives decreased in the last election, despite Republicans winning the White House, the Senate, and the House. There were four flipped seats from Republican to Democratic in the last election, going from 11 Republican seats in the 118th Congress (when Langworthy was the state GOP chair) to 7 in the 119th Congress. Both LaLota and Lawler are in highly competitive districts and likely to face serious challenges in 2026.
Flips From Republican to Democrat NY House Seats
NY‑3 (George Santos, currenly in prison): Flipped via special election in early 2024 to Democrat Tom Suozzi.
NY‑4 (Anthony D’Esposito): Lost to Democrat Laura Gillen
NY‑19 (Marc Molinaro): Defeated by Democrat Josh Riley
NY‑22 (Brandon Williams): Defeated by Democrat John Mannion
And Lawler has the optics of his disastrous town hall meeting in Somers to overcome when New York State Police physically removed a senior for simply asking Lawler a question.
The New SALT Deduction
- Raises the SALT deduction cap from $10,000 to $40,000 (or $20,000 for married filing separately) starting in 2025.
- Applies only to taxpayers with Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) up to $500,000 ($250K for married filing separately).
- Above that, the cap is phased down: for every dollar above the threshold, the cap drops by 30¢, bottoming out at $10,000 once MAGI reaches about $600,000.
- The $40,000 cap and the $500,000 MAGI threshold are indexed upward by 1% per year from 2026 to 2029.
- The new cap expires at the end of 2029, reverting to $10,000 cap for tax years 2030 onward.
The new $40,000 cap on the SALT deduction is a significant improvement from the $10,000 cap imposed by the 2017 Trump tax law.
For households earning under $500,000, the expanded deduction restores a sizable portion of what was lost eight years ago. In high-tax states like New York, where property and income taxes routinely exceed $10,000 per year, this change translates into several thousand dollars per household. Trump promised to eliminate the SALT cap while campaigning, but he’d previously signed the 2017 law that imposed it. Raising the cap to $40,000 helps middle- and upper-middle-class families reclaim a fairer share of their income.
Statewide, the savings are huge. New Yorkers were losing an estimated $12 to $15 billion annually under the old cap. The new cap is expected to restore $6 to $10 billion of that. That money stays in New York instead of going to Washington. It also narrows the balance of payments deficit between “donor” states like New York and the federal government.
While the increase in the SALT cap is temporary, it’s a significant improvement for New York homeowners and taxpayers who’ve been subsidizing lower-tax states for nearly a decade.
Riding the SALTy Coattails
Rep. Nicholas Langworthy (R‑NY23) has been praising the expansion of the SALT deduction, blaming it for costing the state up to $15 billion a year. After the House passed the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” he called it “a generational win” that finally lifted the SALT cap “punishing homeowners in places like New York.”
What he leaves out is that he had nothing to do with making the increased SALT cap happen.
Langworthy voted for the final package, but he didn’t fight for SALT relief. He wasn’t in the meetings. He wasn’t pressuring House leadership. He didn’t threaten, as Lawler did, to tank the whole bill if SALT wasn’t fixed. That was left to downstate Republicans in highly competitive districts, such as Mike Lawler and Nick LaLota. These SALTy Republicans pushed hard to raise the cap and refused to back down. They got it done.
The higher SALT deduction will save New Yorkers thousands of dollars each year in federal taxes. And it will significantly reduce New York’s balance of payments deficit. In districts like Langworthy’s NY-23, where combined state and local taxes often exceed $15,000 to $25,000, the savings on federal taxes are substantial.
Langworthy sat out the fight. He didn’t join the SALTy Republicans. He didn’t lead, didn’t lobby, didn’t publicly push. He didn’t fight for his constituents. But once the ink was dry, he was ready with talking points. He let others do the work, and then he took credit.
