We begin today with a mélange of metaphors (or, to be honest, clichés): Democrats are about to shoot themselves in the foot once again. What they really need to do (quickly!) is to go back to the SALT mines and dig up a better solution than the one currently in the House's version of the Build Back Better bill.

Allow me to explain. In case you haven't heard the term before, "SALT" stands for: "State And Local Taxes." Before the Trump tax cuts, people who itemized their deductions on their income taxes (filed Schedule A with their 1040, in other words) used to be able to write off (from their federal taxable income) all the state and local taxes they paid, for things like state income taxes and local property taxes. It was slightly limited (you couldn't easily write off sales taxes, for instance), but essentially anyone who bought a house -- in any state where houses are expensive and property taxes are substantial -- used Schedule A and wrote all those taxes off their federal taxable income each year.

Trump's tax cut changed this, by severely limiting the total amount of state and local taxes to only $10,000. This actually hit a lot of wealthy people hard (with higher federal income taxes) but it was an incredibly devious political move for Republicans because almost all the places in the entire country with both very high real estate prices and high property taxes are located in blue states. Taxpayers in California, New York, and New Jersey (and a handful of other states) all felt this pinch the hardest.

So Democrats from these blue states have been fighting hard to get this limit either eliminated (which would mean going back to the way it worked before the Trump tax cut) or at least raised to a more reasonable amount. Because it wasn't just rich people who were hit by this tax change -- a whole lot of middle class families (mostly in blue states) took the hit too.

Originally, the plan was to roll back major portions of the Trump tax cuts. President Joe Biden has made it clear he won't raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year, but above that the Trump tax cuts could be rolled back entirely. The change in the SALT deduction was supposed to just be a part of all this. And Democrats could rightfully defend the SALT change (which "lowers taxes on the wealthy!") by pointing out that the wealthy would also see their overall tax rate go up, therefore they'd all wind up paying more taxes anyway.

Then Senator Kyrsten Sinema insisted on keeping all the Trump tax cuts, period. No income tax rate hikes at all. No rolling back the Trump tax cuts, or she wouldn't vote for it. So the entire rest of the Democratic Party had to reluctantly drop this major way of funding the bill.

But somehow, in the House version, the SALT deduction snuck back in. The House version of the bill would raise the limit on SALT deductions from $10,000 to a whopping $80,000. With no means-testing included, this means anyone making a stratospherically-high income will get a huge tax break.

Or to put it as the Republicans are already putting it: "Democrats are slashing taxes on rich people." This is not, to state the painfully obvious, supposed to be what Democrats stand for. It is a messaging disaster waiting to happen. Here's how it's already being framed by some:

Democrats are struggling with a huge problem that could sink them at the ballot box: They may end up looking more sympathetic to rich people than Republicans.

After spending several election cycles campaigning against the GOP's tax cuts as a boon for the wealthy, House Democrats are on the verge of passing a massive tax break for high-income earners -- raising a cap on local and state tax deductions that primarily affects high-cost states. Though it's good politics for many coastal-area members to include that tax relief in President Joe Biden's social spending and climate bill, it's a move that Democrats say threatens to become a national liability ahead of next year's midterms.

With Democrats already lagging behind Republicans in national polls, many in the party say anchoring themselves to this issue is the last thing they should do. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said he'd "just as soon have it out. Not a big fan because I think it gives tax breaks to the wrong people: Rich people."

"You can't be a political party that talks about demanding the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes and then end up with a bill that gives large tax breaks to many millionaires," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "You can't do that. The hypocrisy is too strong. It's bad policy, it's bad politics."

The Senate will almost certainly either add some sort of means-testing to the new SALT limit, so that people making (say) above $200,000 a year wouldn't be able to benefit from the change. Or they could just as easily raise that $10,000 to something more reasonable (such as $25,000 or $30,000). That would cover just about everyone in the middle class who has a decent house in a decent area in a high-tax state. It may sound like a lot of money, but please remember that a starter house -- your basic suburban house built in the 1950s, nothing fancy at all -- is now going for over a million bucks in the entire San Francisco Bay area. Prices are just as high (or even higher) in plenty of other desirable metropolitan areas in the country. A million bucks buys you what would have cost maybe $20,000 or so in 1970 -- the exact same house. So hiking the tax break to even $30,000 would be entirely reasonable.

But $80,000 is just too high. Unless the rest of the Trump tax cuts are repealed at the same time (to offset the tax break on the wealthy with an even bigger tax hike), the SALT limit is going to have to stay for the time being. It can be raised, but not so high that most of the benefits go to the wealthiest. Or do real means-testing and say that the deduction isn't available after making a certain amount of money. There are ways to fix the problem so it doesn't blow up politically for Democrats.

You may think this sounds like a small or esoteric issue. It's not. It is, in fact, the second-biggest line-item in the House's Build Back Better bill (over five years). Universal pre-K and affordable child care are the biggest, costing $390 billion. Second in line is increasing the SALT cap, at $285 billion. Clean energy and climate only get $220 billion. Paid family leave and all the rest of it each get less than $200 billion. So this is not some minor footnote in the bill -- it is in fact huge. And it is a tax cut. Which will mostly help rich people.

What is wrong with this picture?

Senate Democrats have already realized how bad this branding could be for the party, and they are signaling that they will never accept that high a SALT deduction increase. But the blue-state House members are insisting that it not change in the House version. Which means every House member is going to have to vote for something that is not going to survive intact in the final bill. On an issue that is treacherously hard for Democratic politicians to even try to explain, at least outside of the places where it matters (which translates to: most of the country).

So I end where I began. It's time for Democrats to go back to the SALT mines as soon as they can to fix this. Because if they don't it will be a textbook example of shooting themselves in the foot.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant