The Death of the Postal Service

Let's talk about the US postal Service. I like the USPS, you probably do too. Most people never really think about the post office at all.

Right now though would be a good time to think about the post office before it's gone forever.

"That could never happen," I hear you say. Well you're wrong.

Somewhere in the mid-aught years the Republican party decided they hated the post office and so came up with a plan to destroy it. They made the post office prefund retirement 75 years into the future. This means people who have not even been born yet, who may work for the post office 30 or 40 years from now maybe 50 even 60 years from now would be guaranteed their retirement because  the money is already in the bank.

Think about that for a minute. Think about what other government services, or private businesses are required to do this. In case you're wondering the answer is none.

Up until the time that the postal service was required to do this, they ran within budget, were able to deliver every package on time (with the rare exception of a few that got there 90 years late and always made interesting news stories).

Since the Republicans did this the post office has been struggling.Once again a manufactured crisis, for the purpose of trying to commercialize a service of the government.

Remember again the postal Service is a government service, not a private business. It's like libraries, or city hall. You wouldn't expect to go to a privatized company to get your city hall business done or check out a book would you?

The post office was never meant to make a profit. And until the time of this pre-funded retirement law everything was going well.

After this requirement the post office asked to raise the price of stamps, but Congress consistently tells them no.

Now we are in the perfect storm. During this time of the pandemic, when we need mail in voting more than ever, so people are not exposed to the virus, standing in line to vote, Donald Trump is attacking the post office for multiple reasons.

First, since he cannot tell the states that they cannot do mail in voting, which he knows will hurt his party, he wants to destroy the postal service. This is his last ditch effort to get rid of vote by mail.

In addition, Trump hates the owner of Amazon who ships mostly through the USPS. He hates Jeff Bezos because Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which writes a lot of negative stories about Trump.

Trump complains that he thinks Amazon gets too good of a deal on the delivery of their items from the post service. Maybe he doesn't realize they are the biggest customer the USPS has. He wants the postal service to raise the price by five times.

If the post office did this Amazon would probably go somewhere else, the postal Service would lose their largest customer, and all of us would be stuck paying five times as much to mail anything.

So far Trump and McConnell have managed to keep any appropriated money out of all of the pandemic bills. since vote by mail is important during the pandemic it should be included. McConnell did include a $10 billion loan last time, knowing this would not carry them through the election but would result in the failure of the post service sometime in October.

In the last few weeks Trump has also installed a lackey by the name of Louis DeJoy as the postmaster general. DeJoy has absolutely no qualification for this job whatsoever, and is only there to destroy the post office as quickly as possible from the inside, as Trump has done with many government offices.

If something is not done about this situation in the very near future we are all in jeopardy of losing our postal service in the United States, during a presidential election in the middle of a pandemic.

Think about that when you slog your way through the snow to wait for hours in line in order to cast your vote in a room full of people with the flu and coved-19.

Then vote appropriately.