$150k may sound large for you, but $150k in california is around $90k after tax, and with $2800-$5000/month rents that is not a lot of money left over.
Federal tax rates should not be optimized for localized dysfunctional housing markets.
Please remember that punitive changes like limiting SALT hurts actual people before it causes changes in the way state governments run.
I assume that the SALT limitation will be removed by this administration, as it was punitive and not grounded in effective policy.
I agree that it was totally punitive but I fail to see how it's not fair policy. By letting people deduct state and local taxes you're basically saying that they don't have to pay fed dues so long as they're paying someone something. In effect this is a discount for high tax/high service states. Conversely you can look at it as being a tax on low tax/low service states (a discount for one thing is effectively a price increase for another). If some state wants to be low tax/low service they should be able to do that without the feds taxing them for it. The feds shouldn't be picking favorites when it comes to that kind of thing. I fail to see any justification for taxing states differently based on their own tax rates.
We disagree on the topic.
Even in California $150k places you at around the 85% household (let alone personal) income percentile, median household income is only 75k. I.e., the bulk of Californians have to make do with far less.
California needs to fix their housing market by repealing prop 13 and opening up zoning. That's not the federal governments problem.
California needs to stop subsidizing republican states with their federal tax dollars and separate from the union with the rest of the west coast if we keep on going down that road of logic.