Meting out covid cash

Recent correspondent Robert Bemis would have us believe that the covid “Nazis” are forcing people to take the vaccine when “there is nothing wrong with them.” That is the purpose of a vaccine — to prevent one from getting sick and subsequently infecting others. If you do not want to be vaccinated, then stay home and let the rest of us get back to our normal lives.

I have a simple solution for the allocation of money from the recently enacted covid-relief legislation. Any state whose congressmen voted against the American Rescue Plan Act will receive nothing, except extended unemployment compensation, direct payments to individuals and families, and aid that directly benefits schools and children. Not another dime.

Any state legislature actively depriving women of their right to terminate a pregnancy, limiting access to the polls to disenfranchise Democrats, discriminating against transgendered individuals just to pander to the baser instincts of their constituents, and otherwise passing mean-spirited and meaningless legislation aimed at endearing themselves to Trump’s delusional followers will also receive nothing for their state except direct aid to children and families. Why should any state receive funds from a law it claims to oppose, passed by an administration it claims to despise?

Lastly, the prospect of either Leslie Rutledge or Sarah Huckabee Sanders as governor is too appalling to contemplate. Jim Hendren is certainly no liberal, and he too may end up debasing himself to win the support of the state’s far-right majority, but currently he appears to be the lesser of evils in a state filled with them.

DAVID ELI COCKCROFT Little Rock