In the ongoing national debate over the state and local tax or SALT deduction cap, a critical truth has been overlooked. The cap itself is not the problem — the problem is the punishing tax regimes in states like New York and California.

The outcry against the low $10,000 SALT deduction limit, imposed under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is loudest in the states where taxes are highest. These are also states where the political class has become increasingly comfortable pushing ever-larger budgets, relying on a relatively small pool of high earners to bear the financial burden of their spending.

Prior to 2017, the unlimited SALT deduction effectively allowed wealthy residents of these high-tax states to write off a big portion of their state tax bills on their federal returns. In other words,........

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