Paying for California

Re “The ‘something for nothing’ state,” Opinion, Jan. 20

We want certain basic services but refuse to raise the revenue necessary to pay for them. Why has “taxes” become a dirty word, particularly among Republicans? Whatever happened to the practice of governments raising the funds to pay for services? All this borrowing is far worse than raising a few taxes and paying directly for our needs, because it ensures that our children and grandchildren will have to foot the bills as they come due.

I am outraged at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposals, which would cut spending across the board rather than raise the revenue needed to pay for assistance to the needy, for education and for infrastructure.

I am more than willing to have my taxes raised somewhat to pay for the services we all need. It’s time for California to stop borrowing, spending and then cutting services, and start on the road to fiscal responsibility by going back to paying directly for the things we want.

Linda Winters

Culver City

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It was good to read Mark Paul’s article on the state where too many citizens want their cake and want to eat it too -- after it has been carried to them by an underpaid Mexican.

California was actually once a progressive place where education was king and equitable opportunity flourished. But the comfortable began to think that their comfort was an entitlement; they got stingy and decided that they did not want to pay to maintain an appropriate level of civic quality. The haves manipulated the voters through mindless limitations on taxes.

What we spend on physical infrastructure is scandalously insufficient. The knee-jerk view of fiscal problems is “those damn illegals.” On my less-forgiving days, I wish for a time when people get their wishes: no illegal laborers (and thus a need to familiarize oneself with yard work), tax reductions resulting in larger classroom sizes, worsening of our aging roads and a pinch in maintaining dams and water-carrying infrastructure, and a college system no one but the wealthy can afford. In this odd land of the infernal ballot measures, the voters seem to say “Let them eat cake.” But the cake eaters are ourselves.

Richard P.

McDonough

Irvine

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It’s unfortunate that this article didn’t explain how a state that is among the top 25% in state and local taxes is also ranked so low in educational spending; has, according to the author, fewer state employees per 10,000 residents than all but two states, and “spends less per MediCal beneficiary than any other large state.” If other states collect less in taxes from their citizens and yet spend more on vital programs, then something is broken in Sacramento.

Douglas Borsom

Pasadena