The United States Postal Service (USPS) is in crisis, and one person is standing in the way of its salvation, US President Donald J.
Trump.
Trump, who seems to be driven by his bitterness for Jeff Bezos, continues to blame Amazon’s deliveries for the financial decline of USPS.point 252 |
Trump’s mistaken solution has been to raise prices on consumers, and he has refused to throw a lifeline to the more than 630,000 dedicated postal employees who serve every household and business in America.point 175 | 1
Urban and rural, Republican, Democrat, or Independent, everyone has come to rely on the Postal Service.
Even amid a global pandemic, these public servants continue to deliver food, prescription drugs, benefit checks, and essential packages to Americans every single day.
This despite the fact that more than 2,000 USPS employees have tested positive for coronavirus, or are presumed to have had it, and dozens of postal workers have died from symptoms related to the virus.
They are our modern heroes and deserve our support.
In April, the USPS said it would run out of money by September if it doesn’t receive a federal infusion of cash. While some in Congress and the White House blame the USPS for bad deals and fiscal mismanagement, the reality is the Postal Service is in the crisis for two reasons — both out of its control.
In a recent congressional briefing, Postal Service officials said that package delivery has accounted for around 30% of all Postal Service revenue while mail volume has declined 25-30% during the pandemic.
But even continued, record-breaking package delivery volumes will not save the Postal Service in the long term. It will not provide enough revenue to update a crumbling, 26- to the 33-year-old fleet. And it will not plug the problems festering across the vast Postal Service network that need building maintenance and technology updates.
The retaliation to the White House’s efforts has been fast and forceful. Requests for the President to save the Postal Service have trended on social media nationwide, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have signed petitions or contacted their elected representatives in support of the Postal Service.
Even in these times of harsh discourse and hardened partisanship, Americans are nearly unanimous in their support for the Postal Service.