Greenspan and Bush

The Federal Reserve cut U.S. interest rates by a dramatic half a percentage point (Jan. 4). Does this mean that President-elect George W. Bush and Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan are in sync regarding their vision that the U.S. economy is headed toward a massive recession? Hold your aces, cowboy. Don’t bet on it. Greenspan, miffed at the image of Bush showing up on a white steed armed with a tax cut to save the economy, is attempting to show the president-elect just who really is the “big boss” in town.

And Greenspan has already gotten his reply. Bush praised the Fed’s actions but doesn’t think that it is enough. He has gathered with a posse of business leaders who shared with him their woes of sluggish sales and the need to trim their work force in order to keep their profits up. Bush intends to do something about it. He has already dispatched a veteran tax-cut cowboy in the form of his chief economic advisor, Lawrence Lindsey; and he plans on coming into town with all guns a-blazing.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines, the global economy bubbles with the excitement.

MARIO LARA

Fontana

Airport Congestion

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Robert Ditchey’s “And You Think Air Travel Is Awful Now” (Commentary, Dec. 31) asks that the siting of airports be totally federally controlled so cities and counties cannot say, “No!”

Cities and counties and their citizens don’t want airports because they create traffic and are noisy, smelly and polluting. All of these items are presently controlled federally--and badly.

The FAA doesn’t allow airport landing fees to be spent to solve off-airport traffic problems. The FAA absolutely controls when cleaner, quieter airplanes will be phased in, and it puts airline profits ahead of “cleaner” and “quieter.”

The federal government should solve the problems for which it already has jurisdiction and not give us more.

ELDEN HUGHES

Whittier

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The solution to the LAX situation is obvious: Palmdale Airport. Palmdale Airport is already owned by the city of Los Angeles, the weather is always clear, nobody lives close by to complain about noise, and the existing runways are capable of handling the largest planes.

With it being a mere 35-mile, straight-line distance from downtown Los Angeles, construction of a high-speed rail line, say 120 mph, directly under the San Gabriel Mountains, down the Glendale Freeway median and the edge of the L.A. River channel, would make it an easy 18-minute trip to downtown Los Angeles.

Or does this make too much sense?

TRENT D. SANDERS

La Canada