More Police, Yes; More Taxes, No Way

Re “Yes to More Police Protection,” editorial, Sept. 27: The reason why the Los Angeles area has fewer police per capita than any other major U.S. city is not because the county does not have enough money to pay for more police; it’s because the county is too busy spending millions of dollars on other things.

The county’s priorities are wrong.

Ensuring public safety is the primary responsibility of government. Adequate funding for the police should be the first priority, not the last. As much as we want the police to have adequate funding, a “yes” vote on Measure A sends the wrong message. It says that it’s OK for the county to fund everything else first and make the police go begging for a tax increase. If we do not discourage this type of irresponsible governance, we will only get more of it.

Robert A. Philipson

Santa Monica

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Does Los Angeles need more police officers? Yes, it does. Should we support a sales tax increase to pay for them? No, we shouldn’t.

Not only are sales taxes regressive, their inequality among state and local jurisdictions serves to stifle local businesses engaged in trade. Every sales tax increase drives another nail into the coffin of California businesses that employ the state’s taxpayers and further contribute to the local tax pool by paying business, property and state income taxes.

Merchandise delivered outside of the taxing jurisdiction in which a business operates can be sold without collecting sales tax. Therefore, California firms are put at a disadvantage against out-of-state competitors when they try to do business within their own large, populous state.

It is time to rethink the idea of a value-added tax or national sales tax and stop relying on yet another sales tax increase each time we try to resolve local budget shortfalls.

Renee Dernburg

Los Angeles