Budget Cuts and Spending Priorities

* Your June 7 article on budget cuts facing the state and what devastation they will bring clearly shows that the governor and the Legislature have their priorities confused. Many taxes are required to pay for mandated items which were important when they became law.

Any law which is no longer highly relevant should be changed. I suggest that instead of penalizing the ill, elderly, poor and all those who are now being hurt by educational cuts, priorities be reconsidered. Stop looking at who votes. Start reconsidering the necessity and validity of those laws which require payment by law. Many are not so important as they once seemed. Imagine closing libraries when there is money for resurfacing streets as in Pasadena at present. Priorities are skewed.

LYNN PIERSON

South Pasadena

* It took a long time but finally he’s back--or at least his ghost is. Howard Jarvis’ image hovers over every California city and county whenever libraries close their doors, or teachers are let go, or class size increases, prisons cease functioning, convicts are let out on the streets, police and fire services are eliminated, park and recreation facilities are shut down and more. Why? Times are tough. Revenue is short. But Prop. 13 has locked in constitutionally local and county governments’ inability to pay for services that people need.

It’s time we took a long look at the measure that arbitrarily set a cutoff date (1977) and limits on taxation of property that has failed to keep up with increments in property values. Thereby hangs a tale. It’s a tale of the decimation of governmental services that people have come to expect and depend on. Unfortunately, we can’t pay for them. Prop. 13’s chickens have come home to roost.

CHARLES R. BARR

Upland

* When articles like “State Job Loss Figures 30% Too High” (June 5) are published, it makes me very angry. The U.S. Labor Department is so wrong. The unemployment in California has been much worse all along than the figures that have been given.

How do they count the people who no longer get unemployment? The ones who have become so discouraged that they have quit looking for work? How about all the ones who are underemployed, taking jobs much beneath their skills, working minimum-pay jobs, or working part-time? None of which makes anyone a living.

Our son, who has a bachelor’s degree in a technical field, has been unemployed for months, and has used up all of his unemployment. For every job he applies for, there are 50 or 100 more applying for the same job.

We have lived in California for over 45 years, and we have never seen the economy as bad off as it is now. We have never seen the state, cities and counties as strapped for money as they are now. My husband was laid off in 1970 along with thousands of other engineers. It took him three years to get another good job, but the economy was not nearly so bad then as it is now. How stupid do they think people are when they put out figures like that saying, “Oh, the recession isn’t so bad.” If you have a well-paying, secure job, of course it isn’t bad, but just ask the people who have lost their good jobs.

EILEEN L. LUHMANN

La Habra Heights