Bay Area Quake Aftermath and Freeway Safety
Howard Jarvis often stated opponents of Proposition 13 would blame the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens on the initiative just because they hated the measure. Paul Conrad displayed such a knee-jerk reaction with his cartoon of the Nimitz Freeway (Oct. 24).
State government revenues have tripled since Proposition 13 passed. Prioritizing that money for transportation could easily have been accomplished but the Legislature had other favorite programs to fund. Our organization attempted to reorganize priorities towards transportation by sponsoring Proposition 72 to use state sales tax on gasoline for transportation purposes instead of funneling it to the general fund. Sacramento politicians opposed the idea.
Conrad’s attack is the more irresponsible considering experts tell us we do not have the technology to brace the Nimitz Freeway against powerful earthquakes.
On the same Op-Ed Page, Lenny Goldberg makes the ridiculous statement that whereas a freeway collapse in New York would result from a contracting scandal, a collapse in California would be the result of an ideological scandal over taxes. Goldberg is trying to explain away the fact that disasters happen in high tax states without a Proposition 13. Such disasters are the Achilles’ heel of his argument that high taxes would prevent the calamities. The collapse of the relatively newer overpasses in the Sylmar earthquake of 1971 occurred seven years before we had Proposition 13 during a high tax period in California.
Howard Jarvis’ prediction was correct: Proposition 13 will continue to be the scapegoat for any trouble caused by man or by nature.
JOEL FOX
President, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.
Los Angeles
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