Opinion:  Measure M will hurt the very people it intends to help: the poor

To the editor: Ethan Elkind overlooks one basic flaw with Measure M: Sales tax increases disproportionately impact the poor. For many, even a slight boost like Measure M’s half-cent increase has a major impact. (“Provincial feuding over Measure M will make traffic and mobility worse for everyone,” Opinion, Oct. 25)

Revenue for transportation should be paid by those most able to do so. There should be a split-roll tax for nonprimary residential property owners or a luxury tax for expensive items.

Ride-sharing systems could pay more fees, and alcohol taxes are quite low in California. Most significantly, there are two revenue sources that would not impact the poor as heavily: applying sales tax to services and taxing the oil taken from California. Ours is the only major oil-producing state that does not tax such resource extraction.

Measure M’s backers forget the multitudes who would bear an unfair burden.

Patrick McGuire, Pacific Palisades

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To the editor: The way to truly improve traffic is not by more aggressively tolling drivers or by building developments near ever more transit stops. Instead, we should try to slow by at least half the increase in L.A. County’s population from the 2015 Census Bureau estimate of about 10.1 million to the 2057 projection of 12.5 million. (“Metro’s sales tax could reduce your time stuck in traffic by 15% — but not until 2057,” Oct. 21)

Yes, that would mean that the next Congress and president would have to work together to reduce immigration to the U.S. In my personal opinion, this should be a very big campaign issue.

Harvey Pearson, Los Feliz

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