SALT Floor Speech I just spoke on the house floor to support H.R. 5377 which will reinstate the State and Local Tax deduction and will save Fifth District tax filers $5.6 billion dollars each year. This bipartisan bill will increase property values, drive economic growth in North Jersey, and provide actual tax cuts for Jersey families and first responders. We need to fight back against the moocher states who keep taking our federal tax dollars for their own benefit and we need to do it now. Posted by Rep Josh Gottheimer on Thursday, December 19, 2019

WASHINGTON — Efforts to restore your property tax break on federal income taxes cleared its first hurdle Thursday, but it isn’t expected to go any further for a while.

The U.S. House voted to double the $10,000 cap on state and local taxes this year for married couples, and eliminate it altogether for the next two years. However, there’s little appetite for the bill among Senate Republicans or the White House.

That cap, included in the 2017 Republican tax law, is less than the average deduction for state and local taxes in every one of New Jersey’s congressional districts. Besides hurting middle-class homeowners, the deduction limit has kept the value of homes in the state below what they otherwise would be, according to Moody’s Analytics.

“It remains one of the most destructive bills we’ve ever seen here,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-9th Dist., a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. "Too many hard-working families were seeing their property values decrease while paying through the nose to fund a tax cut for big business and its executives.”

The House bill, which would fund the restored deduction by raising taxes on the highest earners, passed largely along party lines, 218-206. Across the nation, five Republicans voted yes and 16 Democrats voted no.

All 12 New Jersey House members supported the bill, including Republican Chris Smith of the 4th District and Jeff Van Drew of the 2nd District, who announced he is now a Republican.

“Compared to what we get back, New Jersey already pays more than our fair share to the federal government," said Smith, who also bucked his party in 2017 and voted against the GOP tax bill.

The states most affected, New Jersey and other high-tax states, already send billions of dollars more to Washington than they receive in services.

“It’s time we fought back against the moocher states,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist. "This is a huge win for New Jersey families and businesses.”

While the Republican tax law gave most of its benefits to corporations and the wealthy, GOP lawmakers insisted that restoring the state and local tax deduction was a giveaway to the rich.

“Apparently, before we go home for Christmas, we also need to give Ebenezer Scrooge a tax cut,” said Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb.

According to the Government Finance Officers Association, however, 86 percent of those who took the deduction nationwide before the Republicans capped it reported income of $200,000 or less.

The tax cut increased the federal deficit by an estimated $1.9 trillion over 10 years, while having little impact on economic growth, according to the Congressional Research Service.

In the lead up to Thursday’s vote, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11th Dist., took to the House floor every day for 12 days to talk about the need to restore the deduction.

“It lays down a marker in the House of Representatives that any tax reform going forward should not be paid on the backs of New Jerseyans," Sherrill said. “This is a completely unfair use of our federal tax system to double tax people in New Jersey.”

But Senate Republicans have said they won’t bring up a bill to restore the deduction.

And President Donald Trump, who once said he would be “open to talking” about restoring the tax break, threatened to veto the bill.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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