EDITORIAL DEATH AND TAXES GOVERNMENT'S FAILURE IS PUBLIC'S BURDEN.

ONCE again, the failure of government to effectively deal with basic issues has put a gun to taxpayers' heads.

In the case of Los Angeles County's proposed tax to support medical trauma centers and critical emergency room services, it's a matter of life and death.

Either you agree to pay the tax - about $42 a year on the average-size home - or you risk dying while paramedics try to find a place for you to get treatment if you have a heart attack, suffer critical injuries in an accident or face some other life-threatening crisis.

It has come to this in Los Angeles County.

The federal and state governments show no inclination of bailing Los Angeles out of its dilemma as the home to vast numbers of poor people, most of them immigrants, both legal and illegal, who have overwhelmed the educational, health and social services capacity of the community.

The county health department faces an $800 million budget shortfall that could force closure of many public health facilities that help the poor, providing at least minimal medical care.

County supervisors, on a 3-2 vote, have decided to ask taxpayers to cough up 3 cents per square foot on their property to raise about $170 million to keep trauma center and emergency room facilities operating.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky argues that if these facilities for the poor are shut down, ambulances will take patients to other emergency medical centers. This would overwhelm their capacity and make them economic disasters, forcing even more closures and leaving everyone far removed from critical care in the face of life-threatening situations.

It's a domino effect, and anyone, rich or poor, could become its victim.

The arguments being made against the tax are that it's grotesquely unfair to property owners, that it violates the very intent of Proposition 13 and that other remedies have yet to be exhausted.

We would add one more: It's nothing but a Band-Aid on the real problem.

The real problem is the failure of government at all levels.

The feds seem content to have utterly no immigration policy at all.

The state's bungling has created massive debts, huge budget shortfalls and new tax increases.

And local government, particularly Los Angeles City Hall, continues to pursue policies that drive away good jobs, turn good neighborhoods into slums and actively encourage the poor to settle here while simultaneously ignoring housing, safety and wage laws intended to protect them.

And now the totality of this failure has consequence.

The government has put a gun to the head of taxpayers, struggling to make end meets in a weak economy, and demanding that they make a choice: Your money - or your life.

It should never have come to this.