With millions having lost their jobs as a result of the national shutdown aimed at mitigating the death toll of the coronavirus pandemic, Congress, in a rare moment of bipartisan unity, rushed to pass a $2.2 trillion relief package.

Yet the effort was delayed as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to exploit the process to realize a long list of completely irrelevant liberal policy goals. After having been forced to back off, she then went on to attack President Trump for being too slow to respond, stating , “As the president fiddles, people are dying.”

Now, as Congress begins early discussions over yet another bill to address the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus, Pelosi is back to trying to exploit the crisis. Only this time, it’s to benefit ultrawealthy Californians living in million-dollar homes.

Pelosi made clear to the New York Times that she wants to undo SALT retroactively in the chaos of this current crisis.

That is, she wants to restore the ability of individuals to deduct state and local tax payments from their federal taxes. Before the passage of the Trump tax cuts, this provision channeled benefits disproportionately to wealthy individuals living in blue states such as New York and California who itemize their tax returns and have major tax burdens. Eliminating the deduction allowed for other policies, such as doubling the standard deduction and the child tax credit, which benefited middle-class taxpayers.

Democrats in favor of a higher or unlimited SALT deduction allowance often point to the disproportionate federal funds often received by red states. Few would be so shameless as to couch the preference as a means of helping the poor. But, apparently, Pelosi is.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act capped the deduction at $10,000, roughly the amount the average person pays in personal taxes, ranging from federal and state taxes to other personal and property taxes, per year overall.

Both conservative scholars at the American Enterprise Institute and liberals at the Center for American Progress agree that lifting the SALT deduction cap would disproportionately benefit the wealthy. The majority of the gains of eliminating the SALT deduction would go to the richest 1%, with nearly all of it going to the top quintile of earners. And, unlike the current bipartisan plan to institute immediate cash payments to those forced out of their jobs, a removal of the SALT deduction cap would constitute an indefinite tax cut for the wealthy.

The SALT deduction cap arguably hurt Republicans in the midterm elections, with higher rates of crucial swing-state voters casting ballots for national Democrats than statewide ones in areas hardest hit by the tax law, such as Orange County . But, in the long term, such a cap forces individual states to rein in spending. That’s made the move political bait to Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

It makes sense why Pelosi and Schumer have a political interest in softening the blow of the burden of living in San Francisco or Manhattan, but removing the SALT deduction cap provides zero relief for the workers hurting the most during this pandemic. Simply put, now is not the time to dress up simple politics as extraordinary relief for the public.