Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to [email protected]. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    I think the author of the op-ed regarding the purchasing of bags at H-E-B has misunderstood the reason for it ["Opinion – A Plea: Don't Robinhood My H-E-B," Columns, May 9]. She complains that other H-E-B's like the one in Westlake give bags for free, and implies that by charging Austin customers for bags H-E-B is subsidizing the rich folks in Westlake; or that this must be due to some "legislative action."
    Well, there was legislative action, but it was to repeal plastic bag bans like the one Austin had, because conservatives who say people must be able to be free from the federal government decided once again that local citizens cannot likewise be free of state government.
    So actually, the city of Austin cannot mandate that businesses must ban single-use plastic bags. However, H-E-B decided to stand with our citizens' intention to reduce plastics by not offering free bags in Austin (or at least the parts of it I'm aware of).
   The reason for the bag ban to begin with was of course to try to reduce single-use plastics. My guess as to the reason H-E-B offers free bags in Westlake and other cities is that they know their demographics, and the people in those cities on the whole must care way more about free plastic bags than they do the environment.
   If you sometimes forget the reusable bag (that I'm sure you use), as I do on occasion, just cough up the 25 cents, remember it next time, and hope that the small inconvenience of not having free plastic bags is doing something, maybe, to help the environment.

Dear Editor,
    I was bemused to see the letter given extra space in the featured opinion piece ["Opinion – A Plea: Don't Robinhood My H-E-B," Columns, May 9]. My first issue with this person's argument about buying bags is that the bags she is railing about purchasing cost 30 cents. These 30-cent bags are large enough to contain a fair amount of groceries and so even if you forget all your bags and buy a lot of stuff, you're looking at a $2-3 maximum cost. The more important point that she is missing here is that the point of charging for the bags isn't to make money. Again, it's a 30-cent bag. The minimal charge is to cover production cost and to incentivize people to remember to bring their bags. If H-E-B gives away the reusable plastic bags for free as a rule, then it creates the same problem the reusable bags are trying to avoid. People then view and use the bags the same way as the single-use plastic bags these are supposed to replace, and the issue of generating single-use plastic waste is perpetuated. If I forget my reusable bags, I'm happy to pay the 30 cents, because I want to be incentivized to remember and prioritize our city's zero-waste goal.

Dear Editor,
    Let me start with the declaration that I am a patron of the arts, regularly buying tickets, attending performances, and making contributions to annual funds and capital campaigns. I do not condone the “NEA Massacre” ["Arts Groups Lose Promised Grant Money in Friday Night NEA Massacre," Daily Arts, May 5]. A contract is a contract. However, I could not help thinking as I read the article that the arts, along with many programs supported by federal dollars, are in trouble because they are being funded by the printing press (i.e., debt) and not tax dollars. My (and your) kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids are paying for Tapestry Dance Company’s Soul 2 Sole International Festival. (Full disclosure: I’m a longtime fan and student of Acia, Tapestry, and even the Festival.) As a country, we are running trillion-plus-dollar budget deficits, yet we keep creating new programs to fund with ever more (non)existent tax dollars. This is intergenerational taxation without representation. Maybe the day of reckoning has arrived not so much for fiscal reasons but because of reckless leadership. Are we ready to tax ourselves – either through actual taxes, through voluntary contributions or through higher event prices – to support the nonprofits that bring us the arts (and all those other programs we want)? In a democracy, government isn’t “them,” it’s us, and we have shown no discipline when it comes to spending, clearly an unsustainable path. In our heart of hearts, we know this to be true but the temptation to spend “other people’s money” is just too irresistible and impedes the necessary conversations about how to allocate what will always be limited resources.