Ed Royce: Republican House Member Voting to Make His District and Constituents Poorer
**ED ROYCE**
District 39: Northern Orange County:
Anaheim-Fullerton
Even: Safeness of Seat
40%: Percent of Returns
7.6%: Percent of AGI
$1.89 billion SALT in 2014
328,000 tax returns in 2014
$24.575 billion AGI in 2014
$1.8797 billion deduction amount in 2014
30.9%: Income <$50K/year
11.6%: Poverty Rate
42.4%: White Collar
9.6% : Income >$200K/year
40% of tax returns in Ed Royce's 39th California Congressional District in 2014 would have been penalized had state and local tax payments been added into the federal income tax base. The total increase in the tax base in 2014 would have been 1.89 billion dollars. We do not have sufficient detail to produce a precise estimate of how much taxes would have gone up—the Trump administration could, if it wanted to—but the rough ballpark number is 600 million: the Republican tax bill will, if enacted, take 600 million dollars a year out of the incomes and spending of Ed Royce's constituents.
As a prosperous suburban district in Greater Los Angeles, the 39th contains a substantial slice of people who are possible beneficiaries from the tax bill: 9.6% of returns in 2014 reported adjusted gross incomes greater than 200,000 dollars a year. But by the same token that was less than one-fourth of the number of returns that itemized SALT.
The 39th is now a competitive district. In 1988, the Almanac of American Politics reports, Orange County in which the 39th lies was the strongest Republican county in the nation: Ronald Reagan's and before him Richard Nixon's base. But Orange County has changed over the years: the 39th is now plurality Latino. And, as noted above, the highly enterprising and prosperous traditionally-Republican California upper middle class's concerns are not the Republican Party's core concerns any more.
Ed Royce has now spent 26 years in Washington and in the House of Representatives. He is now out of sympathy with the pro-Russian foreign policy tilt of the Trump administration. But he has been in Washington now a long time, and the constituents he serves may now be primarily in the Washington foreign policy hawk and lobbyist community, rather than back here in California.
pdf version: <"http://delong.typepad.com/ed-royce-republican-house-member-voting-to-make-his-district-and-constituents-poorer.pdf>
