‘The Case for Conservation’

L.F. Ivanhoe responds to your editorial (letters, April 21) by observing that there is a huge constituency opposing a gasoline tax increase--the motorists and the oil companies. He has a point.

Your editorial focused on the foreign trade consequences of our overdependency on cars and trucks. There are more important matters at hand here. The consequences include the abysmal household savings record of the recent past, the economic handicaps induced by poor levels of investment, the environmental abuse, and important impacts on the social problems of our cities.

Ivanhoe is correct; it would be difficult to get a sensible tax increase. But he forgets (as did your editorial writer) that we should be talking about a tax “transfer.” As the gasoline tax is increased (a very large increase would be justified), the property tax and the sales tax should be decreased.

STANLEY HART

Altadena