Federal stimulus isn’t enough. NC lawmakers must dip into state’s surplus.

NC stimulus

Congress has spent months debating the merits of supporting Americans with our tax dollars. The end result is an insufficient compromise to provide a one-time payment of $600 to qualifying individuals, half the stimulus payment passed earlier this year.

This stimulus deal will not cover the basic needs of our most vulnerable children and their families when the average cost of an apartment in Wake County is over $1,200 a month. Clearly, $600 will not cover one month’s rent or a mortgage payment to prevent homelessness or keep families from being dependent on food pantries.

The N.C. General Assembly should use its over $5 billion in reserve funds to further ease the effects of the pandemic on our families. With no relief in sight, our legislators need to step up.

Jessica Holmes,

Former Wake County commissioner

It’s inadequate

To be sure, it’s good news that after more than six months Congress has finally agreed on another economic relief package with a second-round of payments to help struggling Americans. But it’s deplorable that it took so long and that the amount of the “stimulus” check will be only $600. It’s wholly inadequate.

Joe Jordan, Butner

Vaccinations

An effective way to ensure that citizens are best protected against the virus and ensure the virus will be stamped out enabling the economy to recover, might be for businesses to require employees to be vaccinated in order to return to the workplace. Whether they could work at home or lose their jobs would be up to each business to decide. Pressure from fellow employees to be protected from the non-vaccinated should make this more effective than setting up resistance to “big government telling me what to do.”

Meyer Liberman, Pittsboro

Lives lost

A Dec. 20 letter writer admonishes us to give President Trump credit for his (partial) ban on travel from China and for Operation Warp Speed. I submit that the first accomplishment may have saved some lives, but nowhere near as many as those lost due to Trump’s lack of support and utter scorn for masks and social distancing. No credit should go to Operation Warp Speed unless Trump enthusiastically and repeatedly exhorts his fellow citizens to take the vaccine. Otherwise, he’s spent billions of our money on a useless exercise and people will continue to die.

Sonna Loewenthal, Chapel Hill

A billboard?

Early in the pandemic, while Trump did shut down most flights from China more than 40,000 people were allowed to come to the U.S. from China after the border closed. And there were no initial restrictions on flights from Europe, despite that there was already widespread COVID-19 there. The gross mismanagement of air traffic from European nations was well documented in video showing huge crowds at airports trying to get through customs and no one being checked for symptoms.

To date, 318,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, partially due to Trump initially downplaying the severity of the virus then refusing to demonstrate responsible precautions, such as wearing masks and limiting gatherings. I highly doubt that any of their loved ones or friends who are missing them this holiday season want to erect a billboard saying “Thank you Mr. President.” I know I don’t.

Jennifer Tlusty, Raleigh

The Dr. title

Regarding “Former first ladies defend Jill Biden after op-ed says to drop doctor title from name,” (Dec. 14) and related articles:

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Joseph Epstein informed me that my daughter (Ph.D. in statistics), my son (doctorate of Nursing) and my 97-year-old father (Ph.D. in engineering) no longer deserve their titles. I’ll be sad to tell them all that Epstein, backed by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, both agree my family members are no longer entitled to call themselves “Dr.” What a shame. If only they’d only known, they might all have become physicians and been entitled to be “Dr.” instead of wasting their time on less important educational attainments. Or, on second thought, maybe Jill Biden does get to call herself “Dr.” after all.

Reed Elliott, Raleigh