House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., makes his way on a motorized scooter on Capitol Hill in Washington for Thursday's vote on the $4 trillion budget measure paving the way for a sweeping GOP tax overhaul. Scalise was critically wounded in a shooting at a congressional baseball practice earlier this year.

WASHINGTON — A bloc of GOP House lawmakers from high-tax states mustered a show of force Thursday that nearly sank the Republican budget setting up a major overhaul of the tax system, the party’s prime political goal and economic promise.

The rebellious lawmakers, from states such as New York and New Jersey, oppose the targeting of a prized deduction in the tax plan pushed by President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders.

The lawmakers insist the elimination of the federal deduction for state and local taxes would hurt many of their constituents and subject them to being taxed twice.

The breakaway bloc isn’t a solid block, though. Its members have widely differing definitions of what’s best for their constituents’ economic interests and who makes up the middle class.

The razor-thin 216-212 vote in the House for the budget allows Republicans to begin work on a follow-up $1.5 trillion tax cut and move it through Congress without fear of blocking tactics by Democrats.

Among the 20 Republicans who bucked their party to oppose the budget measure were 11 lawmakers from New York and New Jersey, who had supported the plan earlier this month but now registered their unhappiness over the imperiled state-local deduction.

A fevered series of meetings in recent weeks with top Republican leaders failed to produce a compromise to mollify the rebels. They began huddling anew minutes after the budget vote.

“We stood firm ... to let them know we’re not kidding,” said Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., a “no” vote on the budget.

Rep. Steve Scalise, the House Republican whip, promised to keep negotiating with the breakaway lawmakers: “We’re committed to working with them to try to fix it.”

“Obviously it’s complicated,” Scalise said. “It all deals with how people, especially in the middle class and upper-middle class, are going to be able to still benefit from our tax-cut plan.”

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., said the Republicans were given assurances that “there’s change coming.”

Other fractures among the Republicans over taxes also persist. A battle over tax-deferred contributions to 401(k) retirement savings accounts has broken open, and GOP tax writers have yet to lock down dozens of crucial details on tax rates and preferences.