Rep. Young Kim won’t vote for a budget bill with a state and local tax deduction cap of $30,000.
That’s the number Kim and other Republicans from high-tax states say has been floated as an offer as the powerful House Ways and Means Committee continues work shaping major parts of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, including the modification of tax provisions.
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Trump seems open to increasing SALT cap, local GOP House member says after meeting OC Rep. Young Kim answers questions about Congress’ role as a check on executive branch, tax policy Medicaid cuts will not get Rep. Young Kim’s support in federal budget processBut they say the proposed $30,000 figure for the tax deduction cap, commonly referred to as SALT, is still too low and would not get their support.
Kim called the $30,000 proposal a “non-starter” and a “slap in the face to the hardworking taxpayers in her district.”
“I’ve become one of the saltiest members of Congress,” she said during a roundtable with small business owners at the Yorba Linda Public Library on Friday, May 9.
Kim and a group of other Republicans from high-tax states — including New York and New Jersey — are complicating House Republican leadership’s efforts to push through the budget bill through the House by Memorial Day, actively campaigning for a SALT cap deduction increase.
Kim said she’d prefer a SALT cap set at $62,000 for individuals. That wouldn’t fully restore deductions for married couples, she said, but that would be a “reasonable offer.”
But when asked what figure she’d be willing to accept if lawmakers couldn’t agree on her proposal of $62,000, Kim said she didn’t have a number. That $62,000 cap, she said, would reflect what works best for her district, and the proposed $30,000 is too low to get her support.
Rep. Young Kim, second from left, speaks during a tariff roundtable with small businesses from the National Federation of Independent Business at the Yorba Linda Public Library in Yorba Linda on Friday, May 9, 2025. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) Rep. Young Kim, left, speaks during a tariff roundtable with small businesses from the National Federation of Independent Business at the Yorba Linda Public Library in Yorba Linda on Friday, May 9, 2025. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) Rep. Young Kim, center right, speaks during a tariff roundtable with small businesses from the National Federation of Independent Business at the Yorba Linda Public Library in Yorba Linda on Friday, May 9, 2025. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) Rep. Young Kim speaks during a tariff roundtable with small businesses from the National Federation of Independent Business at the Yorba Linda Public Library in Yorba Linda on Friday, May 9, 2025. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) Rep. Young Kim, second from left, speaks during a tariff roundtable with small businesses from the National Federation of Independent Business at the Yorba Linda Public Library in Yorba Linda on Friday, May 9, 2025. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) Rep. Young Kim speaks during a tariff roundtable with small businesses from the National Federation of Independent Business at the Yorba Linda Public Library in Yorba Linda on Friday, May 9, 2025. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) Show Caption1 of 6Rep. Young Kim, second from left, speaks during a tariff roundtable with small businesses from the National Federation of Independent Business at the Yorba Linda Public Library in Yorba Linda on Friday, May 9, 2025. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) ExpandHouse Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told Politico the $30,000 figure was just a number floated. “It’s still an ongoing discussion among the members, and I think we’ll find the right point,” he said.
Before 2017, Americans could deduct the full amount they paid in state and local taxes from their federal income taxes. But the 2017 law capped those deductions at $10,000, even for married couples filing jointly.
While most Americans saw modest tax cuts under the law, about 11 million people living in states with high housing costs and tax burdens, including many in Southern California, saw their federal tax bills go up because they could no longer fully deduct property taxes.
Sign up for Down Ballot, our Southern California politics email newsletter. Subscribe here.It’s become a sticking point for Kim, a Republican who represents parts of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and other GOP members from high-tax states. Kim represents California’s 40th Congressional District, where nearly 50% of owner-occupied homes are valued at over $1 million.
And with a narrow three-seat majority in the House, Johnson can’t afford to lose those votes, especially as lawmakers face a July 4 deadline set by the White House to deliver what Trump has dubbed the “big, beautiful bill.”
If Congress doesn’t act, tax cuts initiated during the first Trump administration would expire in January 2026, which would trigger tax increases for an estimated 80% of Americans, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization.
But the SALT deduction is just one of several economic flashpoints, alongside rising costs and Trump’s proposed tariffs, that are shaping the stakes for the 2026 elections and putting blue state Republicans, including Kim, in the middle of public fights over the Republican Party’s tax priorities.
Voters across the country — and locally — ranked the economy as their No. 1 issue in the 2024 election cycle.
Going into 2026, Democrats, looking to regain ground in Orange County and nationally, are leaning into pocketbook issues and painting themselves as the party of the working and middle class.
Plus, the political optics aren’t great for Republicans in Congress right now.
With Trump’s poll numbers at record lows, Republicans are facing the challenge of convincing voters that they can ease financial pressures, even as Trump’s policy implications loom large ahead of an election year that historically favors the party out of power.
That means the pressure is especially high for Kim, who has campaigned on promises to fix the SALT cap and lower the cost of gas and groceries and has said she’s running for reelection in 2026.
Raising the SALT cap deduction would benefit not just the higher-income people in Orange County, but also the middle class, said Anil Puri, director of the Woods Center for Economic Analysis and Forecasting at Cal State Fullerton.
“So I think it’s more than a partisan issue,” said Puri.
Jon Fleischman, a longtime Republican consultant and official with the Republican Party of Orange County, said the stakes couldn’t be higher for Republicans eyeing reelection in 2026.
“There’s nothing more important to the reelection of all of these people than passing the big, beautiful bill,” Fleischman said. “If they can’t actually go through the process of extending the Trump tax cuts, they’ve all got big problems. Republicans will lose the House if they don’t pass the bill.”
Blue-state lawmakers like Kim are walking a fiscal tightrope, said Fleischman.
“Blue state Republicans need to decide their priority,” he said. “Is it preserving Medicaid and other entitlement spending that has ballooned, or is it getting more tax cuts for middle-class Americans? There’s not enough money to do both.”
On Friday, Kim reiterated that she would oppose any budget resolution that cuts vital Medicaid services for vulnerable residents in her district, but noted savings could come from establishing work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients without dependents.
“We have a vested interest … in making sure the Medicaid is protected,” she said.
Roughly 20% of residents in her district are enrolled in Medicaid, according to data from the California Health Care Foundation.
With the clock ticking on Trump’s tax cuts and a September deadline looming for the next continuing resolution to fund the government, Kim said she hopes lawmakers can reach a compromise on SALT soon.
“It’s to ensure certainty for Americans who are wondering if they’ll have a budget,” she said. “We have a lot at stake.”
Kim, on Friday, met with about a dozen small business owners and chambers of commerce representatives in her district, along with officials from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which typically endorses Republicans and backed Kim in 2024.
Meanwhile, local Democrats rallied outside Tijeras Creek Golf Course in Rancho Santa Margarita to oppose the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
“While working families are asked to sacrifice more and more, the ultra-wealthy continue to benefit,” said Florice Hoffman, chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County.
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