Yesterday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee issued a press release saying the U.S. Postal Service would not survive the summer without help.
“The Postal Service is in need of urgent help as a direct result of the coronavirus crisis. Based on a number of briefings and warnings this week about a critical fall-off in mail across the country, it has become clear that the Postal Service will not survive the summer without immediate help from Congress and the White House. Every community in America relies on the Postal Service to deliver vital goods and services, including life-saving medications. The Postal Service needs America’s help, and we must answer this call.”
According to the Postal Service, it is facing a potentially drastic direct effect in the near term on mail volumes and could be forced to cease operations as early as June.
A halt in Postal Service operations could have grave consequences across the country. For example, the Postal Service delivered more than a billion shipments of prescription drugs last year, and that number is expected to grow rapidly as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
These negative effects could be even more dire in rural areas, where millions of Americans are sheltering in place and rely on the Postal Service to deliver essential staples.
In addition, more than 25% of votes cast in recent elections are distributed through the mail and are critical to America’s democracy.
Today, a letter from Reps. Carolyn Malone and Rep. Gerald Connolly, House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman and House Subcommittee on Government Operations Chairman respectively, was sent to Sen. Mitch McConnell that stated:
Like many other companies and industries across our country that are receiving substantial infusions of liquidity, the Postal Service needs our help now. Merely increasing the ability of the Postal Service to borrow money will not solve this problem.
The recent House stimulus package would provide emergency funds and other measures to avert an economic collapse of the Postal Service at a time when our country needs it most.We urge you to support these provisions to:
- provide $25 billion in emergency appropriations to the Postal Service;
- eliminate the Postal Service’s current debt; and
- require the Postal Service to prioritize medical deliveries and provide it with the flexibility it needs to meet these crisis conditions.
Politico has some more background: “the House's $2.5 trillion coronavirus relief package would send $25 billion to the Postal Service in emergency funding and eliminate the Postal Service's $11 billion debt. The measure would reset the Postal Service's borrowing limit to $15 billion and eliminate an annual $3 billion borrowing cap.”
The USPS was semi-privatized in 1970 as an independent, self-funding agency and since 2006, the USPS “has been required since 2006 to pay at least $5.5 billion annually to pre-fund retiree benefits.”
We must save the Postal Service, not only because it is vital for delivering pharmaceuticals to people, but also is the only means of receiving packagings in some rural or remote areas not served by Wall Street package delivery corporations. Plus it may be the only way we have in November of ridding our nation of the self-dealing, callous, greedy nincompoops that infest the executive branch.
NPR reports that states are contemplating expanding absentee voting and voting-by-mail as a response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The election-year coronavirus pandemic has pushed back elections in more than a dozen states, leading to growing interest in expanding voting by mail this year in order to keep poll workers and voters safe.
Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden introduced a bill earlier this month to fund vote-by-mail initiatives.
“In light of the threats that this virus poses, every American should be able to cast a ballot by mail without excuse,” Klobuchar and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., wrote Friday, urging Congress to include funding for elections in emergency packages. “That means states will have to scale their vote-by-mail processes in a way that hasn’t been done before.”
Before we give billions to Wall Street, we need to first help our vital postal service.