State Tax Cut Proposal

Re “This Is a Good Time for a Tax Cut,” Commentary, Jan. 16:

California is in deep debt. The state’s independent legislative analyst predicts that the recently unveiled Wilson tax-cut plan, if enacted, will cost the state treasury $1.1 billion in fiscal 1997, $2.6 billion in fiscal 1998, and $3.6 billion in fiscal 1999.

John Cogan’s piece is fatally flawed because it is based on the premise that the California economy will continue to grow more rapidly than the national average for the next few years. That projection amounts to a fanciful wish based on a reading of tea leaves instead of hard, cold data.

So we must assume Gov. Pete Wilson has plans to be taking up residence elsewhere after 1996, leaving California perilously close to financial ruin. A large, white house on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington may be what he has in mind.

Hopefully, that, too, is a fanciful wish.

ROY ULRICH

Member, Board of Directors

California Tax Reform Assn.

Sacramento