PUBLIC FORUM\Flat-tax foe used 'soak the rich' argument.

Doris K. Reed's letter on Steve Forbes and the flat tax (Public Forum, Jan. 25) states that the "only thing wrong with the current tax system is the unwillingness of the rich, like Forbes, to pay their fair share." She seems to fall into the "soak the rich no matter what" school of thought. Forget about their rights - they have money.

Since we live in the United States of America, a land created and built on the cornerstones of liberty and equality, all citizens should pay taxes in an equal manner. Today that is not the case.

Those who are considered "rich" should not pay a larger percentage than any other citizen. Since their income is larger, the amount they end up paying will be larger, but it should still be the same rate. To suggest otherwise is to reject the very tenets our country was founded on.

The tax rates we have today are obscene. To make individuals give the government 28 percent, 36 percent or 39 percent of what they earn is an outrage. Rates lower than these were among the reasons that caused us to fight a revolution more than 200 years ago.

I grant that some wealthy people, as well as some lower-income people, cheat on their taxes. That fact is one of the great arguments for a flat tax or consumption-based tax.

Everyone can agree the convoluted system we suffer under today is ridiculous. A simpler plan reduces fraud and generates more revenue.

After all, it is our money, not the government's.

- Curt Lambert

Sherman Oaks

Riordan rebutted

When Mayor Richard Riordan's desire to know why police officers are leaving the Los Angeles Police Department produced an answer and a solution that he didn't like, he sought to discount it.

The fact that police officers are quitting or retiring in record numbers, some within days of academy graduation, has rightfully gained the concern of city council members, but apparently not the mayor. The Daily News article of Jan. 28 tells how the Mayor's Office now sees the LAPD attrition problem "no worse than that in other major U.S. police departments." Riordan must have missed New York City's ability to increase its force by some 8,000 officers. How so if New York's attrition was equal to the LAPD's?

The Mayor's Office and the Police Commission are the one's responsible for low pay, low morale and high attrition in LAPD. They are even attacking their own chief of police rather than accepting their responsibility for the many problems.

While Riordan was elected as a no-nonsense businessman, not a politician, he has certainly changed his spots in a short period of time. He is now working with a fever to claim to have met his campaign promises so "politician Riordan" can ably seek re-election in 1997.

- Steven H. Brackett

Van Nuys

Where's the $235 million?

Let me get this straight.

The LAPD wants a tax on telephone bills for a new 911 installation.

Voters approved a bond issue for this in 1992. It was on the ballot to the tune of $235 million.

Now the LAPD wants a telephone tax to "provide a steady stream of revenue." However, the LAPD also says it is on schedule to build and install the system by 2002.

Where is the $235 million they asked for and we voted them?

- John Gorman 

Studio City

More on ozone

I would like to thank the Daily News for printing the letter from Richard Borbely ("Ozone hole is real," Jan. 15) in response to my original letter on the banning of chlorofluorocarbons.

Borbely is wrong in assuming I was speaking of liquids when I questioned how a molecule that can be from four to eight times heavier than air, depending upon the form of CFC, could rise to the stratosphere. A case in point is Halon-1301, a special form of CFC used in fire suppression and a man-made gas heavier than air that has been banned by the Montreal Protocol.

If Halon were not heavier than air, its use in fire suppression would be severely diminished. My argument is not false.

- Merwyn H. Hemp

Northridge

'Junk-science studies'

I find it disturbing that the Daily News and others will publish junk-science studies conducted by groups with a political agenda. The article in question, "Deadlier for immigrants; study ties abundance of guns in U.S. to higher homicide morality rates," (Daily News Jan. 23) is a report about a "study" funded by the California Wellness Foundation, a group created to produce this sort of drivel in an attempt to eventually ban firearms.

Funded by Health Net, this group seeks to attack firearms ownership by making it a health issue - a la the Centers for Disease Control - instead of a legal or political one.

People tend to take these "studies" as gospel. If the media fails to give us all the facts, we have no way to separate the wheat from the chaff, or the truth from the lies. Next time, do your homework.

- Richard S. Taylor 

Reseda

Clinton shares blame

In the past weeks all I've heard in the media is how the cruel, heartless, Republicans are holding up the government by refusing to allow the president to go on spending and taxing as usual. They're accused of causing government workers to lose work (time they'll be paid for anyway) because of shutdown of non-essential services, of causing welfare recipients and children to go hungry, of forcing closure of national parks, museums, etc., that ruins vacationing citizens' plans.

Please note, it's all the Republicans' fault because they haven't submitted a balanced budget.

Here is where I am confused. I didn't know that the Congress alone was responsible for developing a balanced budget. I thought it was supposed to be a joint effort of Congress and the president. In fact, I thought that congressional members were meeting with the president with successive compromises in budget proposals.

I won't try to judge on the good or bad aspects of the Republican budget. That's way beyond me.

What I can't understand however is how the president's unwillingness to even submit any coherent budget, basically his lack of facing responsibility in developing it, is totally ignored, as if he had no part in the shutdowns that have developed. These problems are as much his fault as anyone else. Yet the Republicans are blamed in total.

- Dan Zekoll

Palmdale

Pierce College defended

I read "Pierce College fights decline, deterioration" Jan. 29 with great interest since I have been involved as a Pierce College Foundation board member for the past six years. I've also been a close neighbor of the college since 1956.

While there is nothing new about Community College District funding shortages regarding physical plant repairs and maintenance, there never appeared to be any doubt about the instructional quality of the staff.

The Daily News uses a quote by Ben Reznick, former chairman of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, to support the notion that Pierce College, as well as others, is "teaching outdated courses with little use in the marketplace."

Both the Daily News and Reznick should provide examples of these "outdated classes," as well as identify businesses complaining about inadequately prepared Pierce College graduates with AA degrees in English, business, psychology, biological and veterinary science, physical science, mathematics, computer science, art, music and drama.

Notwithstanding Reznick, I suggest that the incoming new college president will face his greatest obstacles in dealing with a board of trustees that still lacks a basic understanding of managerial accountability.

Equally challenging for the new college president is mitigating the continuing temptation of "downtown headquarters" to sell and/or lease choice West Valley real estate to buyers and/or developers who are insensitive to quality-of-life needs and expectations of West Valley residents.

- James "Jerry" Dominie

Winnetka

Health-care costs

Re "Health care costs on rise," Business, Jan, 30:

If you think 1995 was bad, wait till you see 1996 health-care costs. As an example, one supplemental policy that I am aware of rose from $80 per month to $120 per month. In 1884, the media helped defeat Proposition 186, the single-payer health-care initiative and the president's plan, with screaming headlines and scathing editorials that mislead people - when, and if, they did report on the health care issue.

Maybe the two plans were not the best in the world, but they were better then what is available today. We have in the United States the best doctors in the world that cannot give the kind of treatment they were trained to give. Health-maintenance organizations and insurance companies, limit, for profit, the type of procedures doctors would like to give. HMOs are wonderful when you are healthy, so I suggest you stay that way or you will be very disappointed in your health care provider.

- Ira J. Horn

Studio City

Bernardi praised

Thanks and congratulations to former Councilman Ernani Bernardi in his battle with the Community Redevelopment Agency (Daily News, Jan. 26).

Oh, if we just only had a few more like him on that City Council.

- Laverna Hoisington

North Hollywood

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(1) Steve Forbes hitting the campaign trail with his flat-taxproposal (2) Ernani Bernardi