We have been inundated with competing declarations about the state of the U.S. Postal Service: Donald Trump has been doing his level best, with the help of his henchmen, to starve the Post Office of its ability to handle an influx of mail-in ballots, so that he can continue to make false claims of fraud. This is in contrast to Louis DeJoy insisting that the Post Office is still equipped to handle election mail--which, of course is in contrast to widespread reports of mail delivery slowdowns. Then DeJoy, after telling Congress that he was halting the implementation of the removal of sorting machines and the reduction of overtime, then insisted that such changes that had been implemented could not be reversed.
Since then, lawsuits by several states filed against USPS led to the halt of those changes by court injunctions. When the Trump administration moved in to block overtime work for ballot collecting purposes, a U.S. District Court judge ordered USPS to authorize overtime for a 10-day period around the election, refusing to allow district managers to make the final decision as to whether overtime was warranted or not, since they would otherwise be taking orders from a politically-compromised DeJoy and the governing board.
It isn’t just the states and courts that are battling the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent a free and fair election at the cost of delays in mail service in general. The website Postalnews.com is also reporting that there is a “‘Quiet Revolt’ Brewing at USPS as Postal Workers Defy Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s Mail Sabotage”:
On top of mounting court injunctions and ongoing investigations by members of Congress, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is running up against another key source of resistance as he attempts to implement sweeping changes to the U.S. mail service just ahead of the November election: letter carriers and other rank-and-file Postal Service employees.
Angered by DeJoy’s efforts to overhaul longstanding USPS policies designed to ensure mail is delivered on time, postal workers across the nation have been slow-walking and outright defying instructions from leadership to leave mail behind, dismantle sorting machines, and cut back on overtime in an effort to limit the damage to a service that millions rely on to vote, receive life-saving medications, and run small businesses.
It hasn’t been helpful to Republicans that they have been most seen as being unfriendly to the average postal worker and their ability to do their work. The history of USPS’ financial situation began in 1970, until which time the postal service was a cabinet-level department; but a postal union strike led to the Postal Reorganization Act, in which the Post Office’s operations were converted into an “independent” corporate model. This meant that unlike the Social Security Administration and Medicare, it’s funding would no longer be “guaranteed” by the federal government, but it had to pay its own way. At first USPS was profitable because it had few private competitors, and despite Fedex and UPS cutting into its package business, up until 2006 it managed to keep its head above water.
But then in 2006, the then still Republican-controlled Congress passed the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which required that the Post Office “prepay” employee health care benefits for decades into the future, which few other government agencies and private businesses do. Why USPS was singled-out for this is unclear; the underlying motive for it may well have been to increase the likelihood it would be forced to raise its prices so that private companies could better “compete” with it and skim off more of the Post Office’s business--and perhaps in the long-run put it out of “business” altogther. Frankly, in regard to Fedex and UPS, you still get less “bang for the buck” than you do with USPS; those companies ground service doesn’t even bother to try to compete with Priority Mail on price, let alone on delivery speed--and unlike USPS, Fedex and UPS won’t delivery express mail on the weekends unless you pay even more than the normal exorbitant prices they charge.
The 2006 act was, like the earlier Bush tax cuts, based on faulty calculations; the last year of the Clinton administration saw the last federal budget surplus, and George Bush and the Republicans demanding the tax cuts claimed that their tax cuts would be “off-set” by expected continuing economic growth with tax revenue, despite cuts, to keep pace with federal spending. But soon afterward came the 2001 recession, and then the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the federal deficit ballooned. The country also saw one of the slowest recoveries in its history between 2001 and the next recession, just six years later.
The 2006 PAEP was also based on the faulty premise that USPS’ small profits should be placed directly into its retiree health insurance fund--and keep funding it until it had enough “saved” for many decades into the future (reportedly as much as 75 years into the future). But then came the Great Recession, and USPS has not recovered from the massive revenue losses during that time. In recent years, because of massive yearly debts, USPS has been forced to default on the pre-funding payments, which is currently less than 50 percent of what it was expected to be by now--but still a lot of money to have saved for that purpose, compared to most private businesses that even offer employer-paid retiree medical benefits at all. At the end of 2019, the GAO estimated that three-quarters of USPS’ current debt is derived from retiree benefit payments.
Anyways, people may have noticed that banks and some credit card companies no longer send them paper statements through the mail--they are all posted “electronically” now. That is just one once reliable revenue stream that USPS has lost, and another is that hardly anyone writes paper letters anymore, with cell phones, text messaging, Facebook and email taking their place. As mentioned before, when USPS was an executive branch “department,” its funding were guaranteed by the federal government; any deficits it incurred was covered by the government. That has not been the case since the 1970 restructuring law; USPS is still a government agency that was first mandated by George Washington, but it is now expected to support itself entirely like a private, for-profit business--unlike the federal government, which during the Trump administration it has been setting records for deficit spending. These deficits have to be paid, and unlike private businesses, federal deficits are covered by the sale of Treasury bonds, or simply printing out more money.
Thus USPS certainly has financial problems. But is that to be “fixed” by dismantling high-speed sorting machines--including reportedly brand-new, updated machines in some places” How does that improve “efficiency”? How could it? Wouldn’t better equipment induce better efficiency and eliminate the need for more overtime? DeJoy and the USPS board are making the bizarre claim that reducing the number of tools needed for efficient operation both saves money and “improves” efficiency. What it really does is cause inefficiency, mistakes and backlogs--exactly what Trump and his reelection strategists “predicted” and wanted to happen just to cause distrust and disrupt mail-in balloting. If there is any election “fraud” going on, it is by the Trump administration and its political stooges in USPS’ upper-management, in its on-going efforts to disenfranchise and suppress millions of voters.
But there are true patriots working for the Post Office. The Washington Post reported that “Mechanics in New York drew out the dismantling and removal of mail-sorting machines until their supervisor gave up on the order, In Michigan, a group of letter carriers did an end run around a supervisor’s directive to leave election mail behind, starting their routes late to sift through it. In Ohio, postal clerks culled prescriptions and benefit checks from bins of stalled mail to make sure they were delivered, while some carriers ran late items out on their own time. In Pennsylvania, some postal workers looked for any excuse—a missed turn, heavy traffic, a rowdy dog—to buy enough time to finish their daily rounds.”
These people know they perform an essential function in society; it is a few of their “bosses” who are “non-essential” and need to be “retired”--starting with that “clown” who won’t “shut-up” in the White House.
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