COVID relief bill contained plenty of pork-barrel projects

I am writing in response to Linda Coverdale’s letter to the editor titled “McCarthy voted against his own district with ‘no’ on stimulus bill.”

She wrote, “Democrats put out a (coronavirus) bill at $1.9 trillion. Not a single Republican voted for it because they wanted to hurt President Biden…”

On the contrary, please be advised that if you had listened to the battery of lawmakers who spoke out against that bill, you may have come to the conclusion that they did so because only $170 billion actually goes toward coronavirus related causes, while the vast majority, $1.73 trillion, or 91 percent, goes toward pork barrel spending, Democrat donors (such as teachers unions), bailouts for poorly-governed Democrat cities and states, Democrat pet projects, and other such superfluous nonsense.

In regard to the Republican COVID relief bill of 2020, Coverdale went on to say, “Every Democrat voted for it in support, even though it helped Trump.”

Have you considered that that may have been the case because

Republicans were more responsible than to heap unnecessary pork barrel spending into their bill, and that the vast majority of that money actually went to “all those in need,” as you said?

That being the case, Democrats voted for the 2020 Republican bill because it actually benefited all the people who needed it, and voted for their own 2021 Democrat bill because it benefited themselves, for the most part, and many of their donors.

Finally, that Republican COVID relief package came out at a time when we were deep into the pandemic and being very hard hit. Conversely, Nancy Pelosi’s fat-ladened package came when we may be a month or two away from herd immunity, and while that partisan spending continues for years into the future. Or, as Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go the waste.”

— William Nelson, Tehachapi