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Welcome To RCBJ’s “Your Voices” Column, a new occasional feature. If you have something to say, in a well-reasoned essay of 500 to 700 words, email the editor at ttraster@rcbizjournal.com. Columns submitted to “Your Voices” are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Rockland County Business Journal.
Disappointment In Lawler’s Securing And Presentation Of SALT Deduction In The OBBBA
By Ann Starer
Congressman Mike Lawler has been on a publicity tour, hoping that news outlets (and, as a result, constituents) will focus their attention on the higher — though only for a few years — SALT cap that Lawler voted to include in the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (“OBBBA”).
But the data suggests that Lawler’s claims are designed to mislead us by grossly exaggerating the limited benefit of this short-term SALT cap increase.
What is the “SALT cap”? The SALT cap, initially put in place during Donald Trump’s first term, curtails the state and local taxes that taxpayers may deduct on federal returns. Before Trump 1.0, taxpayers could fully deduct their state and local taxes if they benefited from itemizing their returns.
After Trump signed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) in 2017, taxpayers were limited to deducting no more than $10,000 of state and local taxes. That cap was due to expire at the end of this year.
No more. The SALT cap will now remain in effect permanently unless the law is changed.
And Lawler was the deciding vote in support of the February budget resolution that allowed a SALT cap to continue. Had Lawler voted against this resolution, the SALT cap would have disappeared entirely at the end of the year, and constituents who benefited from itemizing their returns would have been able to deduct fully their state and local taxes. Different budget provisions could have been
negotiated.
Under the OBBBA legislation that Lawler supported in July, the SALT cap only temporarily increases from $10,0000 to $40,0000 for some married taxpayers, and even then, just through 2029, before going back down to the $10,000 limit that Trump put in place in 2017. Shortly before he voted for the OBBBA, Lawler insisted that he would only support a significantly higher SALT cap, suggesting that $200,000 for married couples would be an acceptable ceiling. At the time, some of his colleagues proposed a $30,000 cap, which Lawler called “woefully inadequate.”
In short order, however, Lawler caved to Trump’s pressure, changed his position, and voted for a mere $40,000 cap, and one that would only last for a few years, a far cry from the $200,000 limit which he had proposed in legislation in January and on national television as late as May.
Instead of presenting his dramatic about-face on the SALT cap as a defeat, Lawler acted as though the $40,000 short-term limit was always a solid policy win. After the OBBBA passed, Lawler took to the airwaves again, this time bragging about his role in putting in place a temporary cap that was significantly lower than the one he was seeking just weeks before. He has yet to acknowledge that he changed his position, let alone to explain why.
What is perhaps more troubling are Lawler’s deliberately misleading statements about the impact of the new, temporarily higher SALT cap. Lawler deceptively claims that “[r]aising the SALT cap to $40,000 means that over 90 percent of families in NY-17 can now fully deduct their state and local taxes.” If you think that Lawler means that the higher SALT cap will help more than 90 percent of those in the district, you are wrong. He cleverly crafts the language of his soundbite to lead you astray. The short-term higher SALT cap is not nearly as helpful as Lawler’s words suggest.
And it seems he used CHATgpt to find numbers that would fool you!
Let’s break down Lawler’s claim and examine its flaws. While the temporarily higher SALT cap will benefit some fraction of those in NY-17, it will not benefit even the majority of those in the district, let alone more than 90 percent of families, as Lawler would have us believe. In order for the SALT deduction to benefit you, you need itemizable expenses that exceed the standard deduction. Most taxpayers’ potential deductions are lower than the standard deduction.
But pay attention to Lawler’s language: Lawler says that over 90 percent “can” now fully deduct their state and local taxes; sneakily, he never says that 90 percent will benefit from taking this deduction.
That’s because such a claim is false: most will not benefit at all from itemizing their federal returns instead of taking the standard deduction. Technically, Mr. Lawler is not outright lying when he says that over 90 percent “can” itemize all of their SALT taxes; he’s just deliberately misleading voters to make them think that they’ll gain, when most will not.
How did Mr. Lawler even come up with the statement that 90 percent “can” itemize their SALT taxes?
There don’t appear to be any reports that support Lawler’s claim. Thanks to CHATgpt, however, you can generate an administrative-data–based model that approaches Mr. Lawler’s projections. (Try asking CHATgpt what share of taxpayers in NY-17 will be able to fully deduct their state and local taxes under the new $40,000 SALT cap. The answer to that question is, in fact, approximately 90 percent.)
But what happens when you ask CHATgpt to distinguish between those who “can” fully itemize their SALT taxes and those who will benefit from doing so? The numbers go way down. According to CHATgpt, the percent of those in NY-17 who both can fully deduct state and local taxes and would benefit by itemizing their returns is approximately 38%, a far cry from the more than 90% that Lawler suggests will gain from the temporarily higher SALT cap.
CHATgpt made no mistake. Lawler simply devised a question that would produce an answer that he could sell.
Mike Lawler is following the instructions of the National Republican Congressional Committee (“NRCC”), notwithstanding that doing so requires him to lie and/or mislead on a host of fronts. In a memo dated July 28, 2025, the NRCC instructed members of Congress to return home to their districts and “go on offense and show voters how every part of this bill is a big, beautiful win for working families.” This is despite the many provisions of the OBBBA that will negatively impact a broad swath of those in NY-17. Lawler was instructed to spread misinformation, and he has done exactly that.
Why couldn’t Mike Lawler have told his constituents the truth: that some will benefit from itemizing their federal returns to take advantage of the higher SALT cap before it expires in 2029, but most will not? Among other reasons, Mr. Lawler wants and desperately needs your vote in 2026. His seat is vulnerable, and he is apparently willing to go to great lengths to hold onto it, including falsely leading the public to believe that the temporarily higher SALT cap is more advantageous to his constituents than it is.
Regardless of where you stand on the SALT cap or any of the other provisions that Lawler and his MAGA colleagues enacted, you deserve the opportunity to understand what is at stake.
Ann Starer is a co-founder of Fight Lawler
