A group of Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Thursday over its moves to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and its termination of nearly half the agency’s staff.

Attorneys general from 20 states and the District of Columbia lodged the legal challenge in response to the Trump administration’s dismissal of more than 1,300 workers at the Education Dept.

“The lay-offs are an effective dismantling of the Department,” the state AGs wrote.

“[The] Department’s authority to administer [Reductions in Force] does not override Congress’s exclusive authority to abolish executive agencies or to discontinue their functions,” they added.

As an agency authorized by Congress, the Education Department cannot be eliminated without congressional approval. But in the meantime, the Trump administration can slowly starve it by cutting resources.

The plaintiffs named in the lawsuit are President Donald Trump, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and the U.S. Department of Education.

The White House and Education Department did not immediately respond to a request from CNBC for comment.

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On Tuesday, McMahon said on “Squawk Box” that efforts to dismantle the agency are “proceeding as expeditiously as possible.”

The Education Department manages the country’s more than $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio, provides funding for schools and ensures civil rights.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

As lawmakers debate President Donald Trump‘s tax cuts, a key deduction could become a sticking point in 2025 tax negotiations, policy experts say.

Enacted via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017, there’s currently a $10,000 limit on the federal deduction on state and local taxes, known as SALT. Residents who itemize tax breaks cannot deduct more than $10,000 in levies paid to state and local governments, including income and property taxes.

That could change amid tax negotiations with lawmakers from high-tax states like California, New Jersey and New York.

Since 2018, the SALT cap has been a hot-button issue among certain lawmakers from those high-tax states. Before TCJA, the SALT deduction was unlimited, but the so-called alternative minimum tax reduced the benefit for some higher earners.

The TCJA SALT provision will expire after 2025 without action from Congress.

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Although Trump enacted the $10,000 SALT cap in 2017, he reversed his position last year on the campaign trail, vowing to “get SALT back” if re-elected. He has renewed calls for reform since being sworn into office.

“I’d love to see something happen on SALT,” Trump said in a Fox News interview on Sunday. 

However, it’s unclear how the provision will ultimately change amid competing tax priorities and a limited budget. 

“The SALT cap is a major revenue raiser,” said Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation. “That’s the balancing act.”

Trillions of dollars in tax breaks enacted via TCJA are scheduled to expire after 2025, including lower tax brackets, a bigger child tax credit and a 20% deduction for pass-through businesses, among others. 

Extending individual and estate tax provisions would reduce revenue by $3.9 trillion over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

One SALT reform proposal, which aims to raise the SALT cap to $20,000 for married couples filing jointly, would further decrease revenue by $170 billion, the organization estimates.  

Other plans have called for a higher SALT deduction limit or raising the cap for taxpayers under a certain income threshold.

With control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans plan to use a process known as “reconciliation” to enact Trump’s tax agenda. Currently, the House Republicans’ budget blueprint authorizes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts through 2034, though it could change in Senate negotiations.

That’s an “almost unfathomably large number and somehow too small for the current agenda,” unless lawmakers include offsets to pay for the proposed tax cuts, said Andrew Lautz, associate director for the Bipartisan Policy Center’s economic policy program.

“If there is a major tax deal this year, it seems almost certain that SALT will be part of the discussion,” he said.

Selling a house involves much more than just putting up a “for sale” sign.

In addition to some key things to consider — like knowing market conditions, preparing your home for showings and deciding whether to work with a real estate agent — it’s important to get the right asking price, according to Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com. 

Otherwise, your home is going to sit on the market for a long time, and eventually you will have to cut the price anyway, he said. 

“Getting the price right to start is really important,” Berner said. 

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Zillow’s home trend expert Amanda Pendleton agreed, and said that homes that are well priced and marketed tend to sell in a matter of weeks comparted with homes that miss on the right asking pricing. Those can linger on the market for two months or more, she said. 

Here’s what to consider if you are looking to sell your home, according to experts. 

Home sale listings have been picking up this year. This can create a more competitive environment for home sellers as buyers will have more options to choose from, Berner said.

For the week ending March 1, new listings increased 0.1% compared to the week prior, growing for the eighth consecutive week, Realtor.com found. In February, for-sale inventory was up 27.5% from a year prior, per the site’s monthly housing report. 

Meanwhile, sellers have been forced to drop home prices while homes sit on the market for longer. The average time a listing spends on the market is up to 66 days, five more days than last February and the highest since February 2020.

In February, Realtor.com’s monthly report indicated that 16.8% of listings had price reductions, a 2.2 percentage point increase compared to last year, and the highest February activity since 2021.

A January report from the National Association of Realtors indicated a decrease in homes sold above asking price (15% vs. 16% the previous month and year). Meanwhile, homes listed got an average of 2.6 offers from buyers, up from 2.1 a month before but flat from 2.7 a year ago.

It’s not the same seller’s market from the past few years, said Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

For a general idea of your home’s value, online home price estimators, also known as automated valuation models, can be helpful. Such tools use algorithms and publicly available data to estimate a property’s worth, according to Bankrate.

But keep in mind that the estimate might be helpful only for a ball-park figure, experts caution. AVMs rely on public records, and if they haven’t been updated yet, the data might not reflect renovations or changes to the home, Bankrate noted.

A professional home appraiser or a real estate agent will be able to come into your home and look at any upgrades that you’ve made and provide a more detailed evaluation, Lautz said.

“Hire an experienced local agent who’s going to know your neighborhood like the back of their hand,” Pendleton said.