On Tuesday, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries blamed Republicans for preventing the rich from “paying their fair share.” But just months prior, the New York Democrat threatened to oppose any spending bill that did not include a half-trillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthy.

During his Tuesday press conference, Jeffries accused Republican lawmakers of doing “everything possible to elevate the fortunes of the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected, and prevent them from paying their fair share.” But Jeffries helped lead the charge in the Democratic Party to reinstate the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction, which gives wealthy Americans in blue states a sizable tax discount by allowing them to deduct the amount they pay in state and local income tax from their reported federal income.

While Republicans capped the deduction at $10,000 in 2017, Democrats floated a proposal last year to allow an unlimited deduction through President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion social spending bill. The policy would have cost an estimated $500 billion, making it the bill’s most expensive provision. Roughly $400 billion of that revenue loss would have gone to the top 5 percent of households, and a Committee for a Responsible Budget study found that households making less than $100,000 a year would see virtually no benefit.