SALT in the Electoral Votes

In looking at how President Trump managed to win in Texas and Florida but apparently not in some of the other swing states, it's worth thinking about the decision, as part of the Trump tax cuts, to cap the deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000 a filing. Neither Texas nor Florida have a state income tax, and property values and taxes are low enough that relatively few people experienced the capping of the state and local tax deduction as a painful tax increase. In other states where there are state income taxes, relatively prosperous people felt like Trump was raising their taxes, or at least taking away one of their favorite deductions. I totally get the incentives and simplification and even progressivity case ("The SALT tax deduction is a handout for the rich. It should be eliminated not expanded," a Brookings analysis insists) for limiting this deduction, and I also realize the revenue it generated helped make possible other tax moves, such as raising the standard deduction or cutting corporate rates. But as a political matter, in places such as the high-property tax suburbs of Philadelphia, suburban Atlanta, Arizona—Biden's promise to un-cap this deduction against Trump's imposition of the cap may have helped reduce what is usually a Republican advantage on the tax issue. In retrospect, perhaps Trump and congressional Republicans loaded too much of their tax cuts onto the corporate rate side of things and not enough on the individual side of things. The corporate lobbyists are good at getting in there when the Finance Committee or Ways and Means are marking up or negotiating these bills. But the corporations don't vote. I understand the corporate tax cuts flow through to individual shareholders. But for Republicans, there are political risks in any tax increase, even limiting a deduction as part of an overall tax-cutting reform.