WILL TRUMP DESTROY THE USPS, IN TRYING TO KEEP FROM LOSING?

…Hundreds of recently removed,  US Postal Service Mail Boxes

Public outcry has finally stopped the head of the USPS from destroying the US Postal Service

The American public is really pissed-off because the head of the US Postal Service is making big changes to its operations.  These changes could make it more difficult for Americans to vote by mail in November.  With a the public outcry going on, the US Congress has started to step in by forcing its leadership to come and testify.  Under that pressure, the postmaster general has announced that the Postal Service would be suspending all of its cost-cutting measures that have created such controversy.

We all know that Louis DeJoy, the major millionaire donor to President Trump and now the appointed head of the USPS, that he has removed thousands of the big, blue, postal mail boxes across the country.  In addition, he has removed 700 of the USPS mail-sorting machines, which has seriously slowed down the service of the US Post Office.

These moves have kept packages stalled for weeks, such as packaged medicines and boxes that cannot be handled by automated sorting machines.  In addition, since the head guy has also cut back on over-time, those boxes and medicines have been stalled for as much as two weeks from delivery.  Plus, the new head guy has also said that even though he is making these cuts to lower costs, and now he says they may not be able to deliver the nation's mail-in votes in time to be counted.

DeJoy says he’s not doing the president’s bidding to slow-down the mail, but to make the Post Office more cost effective.

The US Post Office has never been supposed to be cost effective, nor to be profitable.  It is in the US Constitution because it is a service required by a democratic nation in order to function.  The military is not supposed to be cost effective or profitable, neither is the service of the postal system.

My basic queston is , “Can the US Congress not only get the Post Master to suspend his cost-cutting actions until after the election, can he reverse the removal of the mail boxes and the sorting machines?” The sorting machines alone must be time savers and cost savers in dealing with mass-mailings such as the coming millions of voting ballots.”

We’ve seen how the public pressure has already worked to turn around just some of the USPS’s more questionable practices.  Yes, the postal agency did say it would stop removing mailboxes from streets for now amid public concern over the removal of dozens of mail boxes.  This finally occurred a day after President Trump said he would block any Postal Service funding in order to stop mail-in voting.

The Postal Service was also removing those 700 mail sorting machines, which certainly slows down service.  But under similar pressure, Trump’s  White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows said it would stop removing sorting machines as well, but no word on reversing any previous actions, so will it really happen?

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One of those removed mailboxes was outside a US senator’s office in Montana, prompting the low-key Democratic rancher, Jon Tester, to demand the postmaster general to come and testify to Congress.

It looks like DeJoy will do just that this Friday in the Republican-controlled Senate and Monday in the Democratic-controlled House.  Yes, he has said he will stop removing  mail boxes and mail-sorting machines, but will he replace the ones he removed?  Most people doubt that will happen.

…This is the Trump appointed Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy

This recently installed head of the agency, Louis DeJoy, is that major Republican donor who is taking actions in line with Trump’s vision for the Postal Service.  But Trump didn’t directly put him there.  Rather, the head of the Postal Service is picked by a board of governors overseeing the agency.  However, it must be noted that the majority of the board of governors have been put in place by the president.

Democrats have decided to go directly after DeJoy’s chain of command. The head of the board of governors, Robert Duncan, will testify Monday alongside DeJoy in the House, where Democrats had planned to ask him to remove the cost-cutting measures.  Now the focus of the hearings seems to be more about keeping DeJoy to his word.  In a letter, the Senate Democrats have also raised the possibility that Duncan could remove DeJoy, an added pressure point they can apply.

Democrats have asked the inspector general for the Postal Service to look into whether DeJoy’s changes are aboveboard and how they would affect election mail.  This was reported by the Washington Post’s reporter, Jacob Bogage.  The Democrats also want to get personal and have asked the inspector general to look into the fact that DeJoy and his wife hold tens of millions of dollars in stock in competitors to the Postal Service and related contractors.

The Postal Service said it would “welcome” such a probe by the inspector general.  We must also be aware that the very influential Postal Union is also behind this probe.

This pressure has worked so far as the inspector general, Tammy Whitcomb, has already launched an investigation of all this over the past week.

Retired postal workers have also shown their support for a postal probe.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is calling the House back into session over the weekend to vote on legislation that would stop the agency from making any new changes to its operations before the election. It’s not clear where that stands now that the Postal Service has backed down.

But legislation like that isn’t going anywhere if Senate Republicans oppose it.  Republicans haven’t received the idea of further restricting the Postal Service warmly, but Democrats have a case to make that Congress should do something. 

The Postal Service is really popular in the United States. A Pew Research Survey in April found that 91% of Americans approve of the USPS.  Americans in the many American rural communities, they especially rely on the Postal Service to connect them to many things. And it will obviously be integral to mail-in voting during the pandemic, which both the Republican and Democratic-controlled states are expanding for November.

Senate Republicans largely ignored Trump’s attacks on the Postal Service in the past week, though some have defended the cost-cutting measures as tough but necessary.

We’ll see how receptive Republicans in the Senate are to any new legislation or funding in a hearing that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is holding Friday, which will put the spotlight on all of these issues.

With Trump understanding that he may lose the November election, finding a way to fund the Postal Service while convincing Trump to sign the legislation could be impossible.

Probably the most effective, immediate relief Congress could provide the Postal Service is financial.  Democrats pointed out in a recent letter to DeJoy that the Postal Service was the entity that had asked for $25 billion to help it continue to deliver the mail as it struggles financially. House Democrats passed legislation including such funding in a bill in May, but it never made it past that step to become law, and getting McConnell in the Senate to bring up that kind of bill would be virtually impossible.

Talks between Democrats, Republicans and the White House for a coronavirus relief package that would include money for the Postal Service, totally fell apart a few weeks ago, in part over how much to fund the agency.

Then Trump said he would oppose legislation that gave the Postal Service more money because it would help mail-in voting.  Trump backed off that overtly political statement later in the day, saying he might sign legislation that gave aid to the Postal Service.

But in comments Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) seemed pretty at ease about the state of the Postal Service without any additional funding from Congress. He noted that the administration has loaned the Postal Service $10 billion from a previous coronavirus bill. “The Postal Service is going to be just fine,” McConnell said.

So, what is going to happen with the Postal Service is anyone’s guess.

Having a lying, GOP president in the White House, a belligerent Republican head of the Senate and only having a Democratic House, that situation doesn’t appear that it will be very good for the US Postal Service.

Copyright G. Ater 2020