Letters

DEAR EDITOR:

Re: "Gray Davis Takes Over" [January 15–21]. For quite some time, Harold Meyerson has been holding out the repeal of Proposition 13 as the panacea of choice for our county (and state) money crunch. I would like to point out that the property tax is a highly regressive flat tax, akin to sales and use taxes. A person who makes $40K a year and owns a $125,000 house (and yes, there are millions of such people in this state) now pays $1,180 per year in general-levy property taxes. If Proposition 13 were repealed and the general levy reverted to 2.5 percent, such a person would now owe $2,950. This would be equivalent to a whopping 97 percent increase in their state income tax! Flat taxes of any sort place an unfair burden on lower-income households, and the property tax is no exception. Only a progressive income tax makes any provision for taxing people based on their ability to pay, and I think Mr. Meyerson’s editorials ought to take this into account.

If all Prop. 13 did was reduce homeowners’ property tax, that would be one thing. But only 38 percent of the affected property taxes comes from homeowners, while the rest comes from the owners of commercial property. I’d favor a "split-roll" revision of Prop. 13: keeping homeowners’ property tax frozen while raising commercial taxes. Or I’d favor making up the hit that Prop. 13 inflicts on state schools —- which the nonpartisan California Budget Project estimates at $24 billion a year —- by progressively raising the state income tax. But letting our schools languish at Mississippian levels of financial support is not an acceptable option.

DEAR EDITOR:

Michael Darling’s criticism of Ed Ruscha’s show at the Gagosian Gallery ["Top 10 Plus 10," January 8–14] is completely off the mark. Although he was correct in calling it a "drop-dead exhibition" (the viewer will drop dead from boredom), the show — trite, hackneyed, worn-out, tired, treaded, insignificant and profoundly unprofound — has little else to offer. It appears that Ruscha — and David Hockney, whose latest show was also lauded by Darling — are resting on their laurels and putting out mere forgeries of themselves. As for this "experienced Angeleno," I believe that Darling’s criticism of the two exhibitions displays just how far he, Ruscha, Hockney and the rest of the dried-up art dictators are from the streets of L.A. and the pulse of its citizens.