PUBLIC FORUM BUFFETT ON TAXES.

Re ``Buffett joins Arnold's advisers'' (Aug. 14):

Warren Buffett's comment that property taxes in California are ridiculously low compared with Nebraska (he cited his residence in Omaha) is correct. Property taxes are only one source of revenue - how about income taxes and sales taxes, which impact taxpayers on a much grander scale than property taxes?

I am sure Warren Buffett prefers Nebraska, notwithstanding high property taxes. The Nebraska income and sales taxes are at least 20 percent less than in California. As Schwarzenegger's senior economics adviser, Buffett needs a crash course in taxation, especially California taxation.

- Dro Amirian

Studio City

Brown's the one

Our country was founded on the belief that private hard-working citizens should prosper and that less government is better government. Now the opposite prevails. We have more government, more handouts and a downward-spiraling economy. People are fed up.

And ... of all the wannabe governors running, there's only one person I've seen or read about who might be able to stop the madness. He's the current mayor of Oakland, Jerry Brown. Go to his Web site, ask questions. This man is not afraid to cut a well-entrenched bureaucracy. He yet may be California's savior. My vote's for him on a write-in ballot.

- Bob Ginn

Arcadia

Not Davis' fault

Chris Weinkopf rants against Gov. Davis (Viewpoint, Aug. 17) saying: ``Davis has driven the state to near-ruin,'' but Chris hasn't done his homework. The Republicans are equally responsible. The biggest spending boondoggle in state history, SB 400, passed in 1999 with a 39-0 vote - meaning the GOP legislators were equal co-conspirators in raiding the state treasury to increase public worker pay, perks and pensions costing billions each year at state and local levels ... forever.

Excessive spending in California is due to three causes, which were out of Davis' control: an energy crisis caused by Enron (and abetted by George Bush's federal Energy Regulatory Commission appointees); the downturn in the national economy - more Bush's fault than Davis'; and the SB 400 pension giveaway mentioned above. Bottom line - vote no on the recall.

- Garth Bishop

Los Angeles 

EPA appointment

Last week, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt was appointed to administer the Environmental Protection Agency - the agency in charge of protecting clean water for us to drink and clean air for us to breathe. For this very reason, I am puzzled that a governor with such a poor environmental record was selected.

Just this year, Leavitt brokered two back-door deals with Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton that will make it easier for oil, gas, mining and development companies to dig, drill and build in places that should be protected. Is this really the type of administrator we need in the EPA? Certainly it seems more appropriate to nominate someone who will value our clean air and our clean water and preserve America's national parks, over lining a few corporate pockets.

- Kent Minault

Sherman Oaks

Can you say 'gouge?'

Just two weeks ago, there was a national report that with the end of the war in Iraq, plenty of reserves and inflation in check, we could expect low and stable gas prices into fall. At that time, we were in the $1.50 to $1.60 per gallon range. The next week, the price surged up 30 to 40 cents a gallon. That's almost a 27 percent increase with no justifiable reason (like war, embargo, etc).

Now they say it's due to the end-of-the-summer driving season. They increased the price in spring due to the beginning of the summer driving season. I would have much more respect for the oil industry executives if they would just come out and say ``We would like to increase our profits severely at the public's expense,'' rather than all these ridiculous excuses.

- Dan Huard

Palmdale

East Coast blackout

There is one possible answer to what happened to cause the East Coast blackout - deregulation. In 1990, Enron received a license for the first deregulated power plant - in England. They couldn't deregulate the U.S. first because Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 gave us the Federal Power Commission and Public Utilities Holding Company Act, which limited charges to real expenditures plus a government-set profit.

Then there was ``George the First.'' In 1992, he deregulated the power industry. California customers paid more than $6.2 billion in excess charges after it deregulated. Then New York Gov. Pataki deregulated Niagara Mohawk and they no longer had to fund the maintenance of the grid system.

- Sylvia Smith 

West Hills

Wake-up calls

President Bush said 9-11 was a wake-up call. Now he says the blackout is a wake-up call. How many more wake-up calls does it take to wake up our sleeping politicians?

- Barry W Bauer

Woodland Hills

Look at Democrats

Re ``Republicans baffle him'' (Your Opinions, Aug. 18):

President Bush went to Iraq to form a post to defend against Iran and North Korea, who just happened to have weapons of mass destruction that could hit the Mideast and the U.S. West Coast. Four billion dollars is cheap to protect the West Coast.

I wonder what he thinks of Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson. Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Germany, which never attacked the USA, and we lost thousands of men going into Normandy Beach. Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on Japan, killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of civilians. Lyndon Johnson was losing up to 500 men a day in Vietnam. As to what Bush has spent, what FDR, Truman and Johnson spent is a hundred times worse, and they were all Democrats.

- Henry P. Terusa

Burbank

Neutralizing terrorists

Re ``Republicans baffle him'' (Your Opinions, Aug. 18):

I'm a fierce independent and I firmly support George Bush and his Iraqpolicy for a very simple reason - the terrorists brought the war to oursoil, and now he's taking the war to their soil. While Saddam Hussein was not necessarily responsible for the 9-11 attack, he sponsored terrorism and had the oil dollars to follow through on his threats.

Notice we haven't had any major attacks on our soil since 9-11. The threat remains, and more attacks are possible here, but the president has begun the long and mandatory journey to eventually neutralize terrorists. Ignoring the threat doesn't make it go away.

- Thomas J. Reilly

Thousand Oaks 

A shell game

While the Bush-handlers traipse from talk show to talk show reincarnating their ``fearless'' leader, it has become apparent that this shell game they play is nothing more than an updated version of the emperor's new clothes. It pains me to say it, but we have a president who is an arrogant, witless, empty suit.

Bush's endless streams of fractured syntax and malapropisms make it abundantly clear that he has mastered the ability to speak emphatically and say nothing. It's time to stop the pretense that for the first time in American history, we have a leader that isn't there.

- Gary Miller

Encino

Research disregarded

Re ``Smith backs LAX plans; Hahn's proposal gaining support'' (Aug. 18):

Had the Rand Corp. come out with findings that supported the mayor's airport plan, council member Greig Smith would have called a press conference complete with smiles, hand-shaking and credential-flashing.

Now Smith passes off their findings like some tabloid yarn. Once again, research takes a second seat to the money trail. Mayor Hahn made a pledge. Where does Smith stand on keeping one's word?

- Michele Levin

Westchester