Constitutional Mandate
Why should the Postal Service be a financially “break even” operation? Of all of the powers vested in the Constitution, (Article 1, Section 8, clause 7), why is this one power somehow expected to make money?
The USPS is running a $20 billion deficit. That includes the total cost of anticipated health care of current employees for their entire retirement. No reasonable company pays upfront for retirement insurance coverage costs, but the Postal Service does, by law. And $20 billion, which sounds like a lot of money, is nothing compared to the $686 billion Defense budget, or even Education with $68 billion (and not mentioned in the Constitution). Neither Defense nor Education turns a profit, nor raises revenue at all.
I question the entire premise that somehow the Postal Service should be making money. The Postal Service is just that, a public service provided by the government. It shouldn’t be a money making deal. That’s not what government is supposed to be.
Public Service
The Postal Service has a function: to help unite America with communication. That’s what the Founding Fathers intended when they specifically provided for Post Offices and Post roads. Even though the means of communicating has dramatically changed since 1786, that function still exists.
The Postal Service employs over 600,000 people. If it were a private employer (it’s not) it would be the second largest in the United States, just ahead of Amazon. And somehow, even in this era of electronic communication, those 600,000 workers still have a lot to do. In fact they are so important, that changes made in the Postal Service procedures that disrupt deliveries creat a huge uproar. Despite email and Amazon, people still depend on the Postal Service.
I listened to the testimony of Postmaster General DeJoy to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. DeJoy, a private logistics industry executive appointed to the role, is directly responsible for postal delays in July and August. They are a part of his economic reforms of the Postal Service. DeJoy sees his responsibility as making sure the Postal Service is financially solvent. He might not have a political agenda, despite Democratic legislators’ suggestions. While he is a major Trump fundraiser, what he seems like to me is a man on a mission.
Run on Time
His mission is to cut costs. His mission is to make the “trucks run on time”. The problem is, his mission isn’t getting the mail through. How else can he explain that he has trucks moving from one sorting facility to another, empty? How else can we understand that personnel are sent home while thousands of pieces of mail remain unsorted? And what conclusion can we draw from the removal of high-speed sorting machines, other than he does not want to pay personnel to run those machines?
All a stammering DeJoy could say to that was, “…the plan was for the trucks to run on time”. But the mail wasn’t on the trucks. Democratic Congressman Connolly made the point that maybe this was all done “innocently”, not as some nefarious plot to disrupt mail service before the election. Either way, disruption happened.
Votes in Question
The reasons aren’t important. These actions are impacting the election of 2020. The US Postal Service may return to ontime delivery before the elections, but the damage is done. DeJoy’s actions have dovetails with the President’s ongoing message. The President reiterated that yesterday in North Carolina. Trump said the 2020 election will be fraudulent; mail-in voting (unless in Florida) will be be cheated; and we can’t depend on the Postal Service to get our votes through.
But there is a larger point, when it comes to voting. Americans are concerned with our disaster in handling the COVID crisis. They are so concerned that most will risk exposure to the virus and vote. Americans will still vote absentee (by mail) but many more will don all the HAZMAT protection they can find and go stand in line. They know that this is a critical election, so critical that it will be worth the unnecessary loss of life from COVID infection. And make no mistake about this, lives will be lost on November 3rd (Reuters). People are afraid their voices won’t be heard if they send a ballot by mail, thanks to the President, and to General DeJoy. So they will risk their lives and vote in person.
Future of the Nation
We should start over. We should go back to the Post Office, a constitutionally mandated organization with a mission to unite America. It shouldn’t be about some unrealistic bottom line, or Rand Paul’s fever dream of privatization.
But as far as this election is concerned, the undermining of public confidence in the Postal Service is done, another “box checked” on the list of Trump’s transgressions against US democracy. The future of the democracy will be determined November. It will be loud and clear from the American people, whether they vote in person or by mail. And that answer will determine the fate of our Republic.
