SALT was not only introduced with the 1913 income tax bill following ratification of the 16th Amendment, it was also included with the 1884 income tax that was thrown out by the Supreme Court. SALT also comes from a time when Senators were appointed by state legislatures, which seems to confirm to me that SALT was a nod to state sovereignty, not a sop for wealthy, higher-tax states.
However, of course, full SALT seems to allow greater dependence on state government (already too much dependence at the federal level), while the states can send their taxes to the moon under cover of SALT.
What I would do is to limit salt to 1/2 of what it was before tax reform, but to help alleviate the pain of having it cut in half, I would allow both income and sales taxes to count, rather then the either-or system they have now. So the formula would be 1/2 (property + income + sales).
Hopefully, this would provide some relief, while keeping states from sending their “revenues” to the moon.
That is molly coddling. A kumbaya approach to taxation is not required.
The recent tax cut law ended the farce of deducting state income taxes from the federal tax due.