Kean Presses Senators Booker, Kim to Support SALT Relief

Contact: Riley Pingree

(June 5, 2025) WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Representative Tom Kean, Jr. (NJ-07) sent a letter to New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim urging them to support the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction relief for New Jersey families in the Senate’s forthcoming reconciliation package.

For more than a year, Congressman Kean has worked across the aisle and stood up to members of his own party to secure the full restoration of the SALT deduction for middle-class families in New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District. Thanks to those efforts, the House-passed reconciliation package would allow families to deduct up to $40,000 in state and local taxes—putting thousands of dollars back in the pockets of hardworking homeowners and delivering long-overdue fairness for New Jersey taxpayers. This change ensures that residents in high-cost states like New Jersey are no longer penalized simply because of where they live.

In contrast, when Democrats held full control of Washington in 2022, Senator Booker and then-Congressman Kim voted for the Inflation Reduction Act to become law, even after then-Majority Leader Chuck Schumer advanced a bill with no SALT relief. Then again last year, both lawmakers missed yet another opportunity to deliver for their constituents when they both voted to advance the Tax Relief for American Workers and Families Act — the same bill Congressman Kean had opposed because it failed to increase the SALT deduction.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has indicated that the House-passed reconciliation bill, containing long-awaited SALT relief, will come to the Senate floor this summer. 

“New Jersey innovators, job creators, students, and working families consistently bear some of the highest tax burden and cost of living in the nation,” said Congressman Kean. "I have been disappointed by the repeated broken promises from Senators Booker and Kim on SALT, which have left our constituents without tax relief for years. I was pleased to see that the Budget Reconciliation bill, which the House Republican Conference sent to the Senate last month, would quadruple the State and Local Tax (SALT) Deduction and provide much-needed relief to every middle-class family in New Jersey. We have another opportunity to deliver this much-needed relief to our constituents, as the House-passed reconciliation package approaches the Senate floor. Again and again, Leader Schumer has sunk SALT; this time, I urge Senators Booker and Kim to join me in delivering the SALT relief New Jersey needs and deserves.” 

Read the full letter HERE.  

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