Yves here. It is hard for me to find adequate words to describe the punishment Louis DeJoy and his fellow stooges deserve for wrecking an important institution that is also a critical lifeline for many small communities.
While I can’t prove it, I am predisposed towards Howie Klein’s theory that there is more than the Biden Administration could do to make the Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s life miserable and are refusing to do so. And I don’t mean horse’s heads or men in raincoats showing up after hours for a private conversation and pulling their coat back to reveal a holstered gun (a former Bridgeport DA said that was a favored local method for getting recalcitrant people to shape up).
Sadly, the USPS Inspector General is not independent but reports to the USPS board. And it seems to be about mail fraud, as in normal people using the postal service to commit fraud, and at worst postal employees committing fraud (say by intercepting checks) but not the Postal Service defrauding customers through terrible service.
However, the USPS looks like it has become so crooked that it probably can’t stand up to much actual scrutiny. However, absent a credible allegation of fraud that implicates board members, it’s hard to see how to get someone with subpoena powers in there.
My pet idea would be to have Congress impose new transparency requirements on the USPS in light of its terrible performance. There’s an existing analogy: the New York Fed tried to claim it was exempt from FOIA because it had a special not-really-public status (unlike the Fed Board of Governors). Bloomberg, which was seeking documents related to the New York Fed’s actions during the crisis, went to court and won.
Here I am not suggesting trying to rely on existing law but creating new requirements. Having to hold board meetings in public, like CalPERS, with very few “closed session” exemptions, requiring the board to hear and record public comments, and requiring management and the board to release documents in response to FOIA (and even better, having stronger transparency rules apply to the USPS) might make the DeJoy gang rethink whether saying there would be worth not being able to hide their considerable dirty underwear.
It’s too bad we Americans can’t do anything like the old Ministry of Finance audits. Back in the stone ages of the 1980s, a Japanese banking regulator was having a drink with the local head of Merrill Lynch (this by the way is standard operating procedure in Japan, the really important conversations between regulators and the regulated happen in the evening with alcohol).
Merrill Lynch guy proposes doing something he suspects the MOF won’t like much. The MOF official says that the Ministry would take a dim view of Merrill going forward. Merrill Lynch guy says, “What are you going to do, it’s not against the rules.” Technically that’s true but irrelevant since then there were just about no written regulations, everything was done via administrative guidance.
The MOF official said, “How would you like to be audited every day?”
A MOF audit then consisted of MOF officials arriving shortly before the official opening of business, in grey uniform and white gloves. One person would blow a whistle and yell out, “The audit has commenced!” The rest of the team would rush into the office, slapping seals on all the file cabinets and taping computers. And then they’d haul employees one after the other into conference rooms.
Needless to say, Merrill Lynch guy backed down.
Any other ideas very much appreciated.
By Howie Klein. Originally published at DownWithTyranny!
Many people are wondering why Biden hasn’t fired or suspended Trumpist postal saboteur Louis DeJoy whose goal has always been to wreck the postal system and who is continuing as though Trump were still in the White House. If Biden wanted to stop him, there have got to be ways to do so short of a much-deserved bullet between the eyes. This morning Washington Post reporter Jacob Bogage noted that “DeJoy will unveil the largest rollback of consumer mail services in a generation as part of his 10-year plan for the U.S. Postal Service, according to two people briefed on the proposal, including longer first-class delivery windows, reduced post office hours and higher postage prices.” This is super-unpopular with the public and at some point DeJoy’s cooties are going to run off on Biden– and congressional Democrats.
His his 10-year plan for the U.S. Postal Service? DeJoy shouldn’t have had a 10-minute plan for the U.S. Postal Service once Biden was inaugurated. He should have had a plan of looking for another job. Bogage reported that today’s announcement was “part of DeJoy’s strategic vision for the agency, one that has left postal advocates wary of any changes that could further diminish operations. Mailing industry experts have warned that substantial service cuts could drive away business and worsen the Postal Service’s already battered balance sheet.”
Flying right in the face of what the Congress and the White House claims is their vision– the one most voters opted for– DeJoy emphasized “the need for austerity to ensure more consistent delivery and rein in billions of dollars in financial losses, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. The agency is weighed down by $188.4 billion in liabilities, and DeJoy told a House panel last month that he expects the USPS to lose $160 billion over the next 10 years. The plan, which he told the panel was eight months in the making, is meant to reset expectations for the Postal Service and its place in the express-shipping market. It’s couched in the notion that the historically high package volumes of the pandemic era will persist, and reorients the agency around consumers who don’t use the mail service for letters, advertisements or business transactions as much as they once did. ‘Does it make a difference if it’s an extra day to get a letter?’ DeJoy told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in February. ‘Because something has to change. We cannot keep doing the same thing we’re doing.'”
Bogage noted that DeJoy was rolling out his plan ‘as Democrats have renewed calls for his ouster and the removal of the agency’s governing board, which backs him and the proposals. More than 50 House Democrats last week asked President Biden to fire the board’s six sitting members for cause– citing ‘gross mismanagement,’ ‘self-inflicted’ nationwide mail delays and ‘rampant conflicts of interest’– and to allow a new slate of Biden nominees to consider DeJoy’s fitness for office. Biden already has nominated two Democrats and a voting rights advocate to fill three of four vacancies (board Chairman Ron Bloom, a Democrat, is serving in a one-year holdover term) on the board of governors. If confirmed by the Senate, Democrats and Biden appointees would hold a 5-to-4 majority with the votes to remove DeJoy, if desired.” Is there someone who think Schumer should call a vote on these nominations… yesterday?
Bogage– and convention media wisdom– claims “Biden cannot fire DeJoy” because “postal operations are purposefully insulated from the presidency and Congress to prevent politicians from tinkering with the mail system for political gain. The postmaster general answers only to the board of governors.” But I’m not so sure Biden is impotent as he’s pretending to be in this matter. He could certainly fire the board of governors (a majority of whom claims DeJoy is doing a good job)– and he should have done so already. And what makes this urgent– and makes me suspicious of Biden’s lethargy in the matter– is that “Most of DeJoy’s changes will not face regulatory road blocks. The postmaster general unilaterally controls operating hours at post offices, and the board of governors appears to back DeJoy’s changes to delivery times.” Today Bloom– the Democratic chairman of the board– joined DeJoy to announce the policies.
The Postal Service must consult the Postal Regulatory Commission on price increases, but the regulator issues only a nonbinding advisory opinion. A group of mailers is suing the commission to block the new pricing regimen, but DeJoy has signaled he plans to forge ahead with new prices regardless.
DeJoy plans to extend the service standard for first-class mail by a day, the people said, confirming a previous Washington Post report. The Postal Service currently aims to deliver local first-class mail in up to two days, and nonlocal mail in three to five days. The agency has missed those metrics for years but has struggled mightily during DeJoy’s tenure.
Over the holiday season, postal performance reached its worst levels in generations: 71 percent on-time delivery for two-day mail and 38 percent for three-day mail during the last week of December. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) compared those scores to unfavorable odds in a Las Vegas casino.
“Sending a letter should not be a game of chance,” he said.The Postal Service’s delivery scores have rebounded in recent weeks, to nearly 83.7 percent for first-class mail the week of March 12. The agency attributed the improvement to more capacity in the air transportation network and the end of winter storms that delayed operations in much of the country.
The metrics remain well short of the agency’s marks from before DeJoy’s arrival last June. The week before DeJoy implemented his midsummer changes, the Postal Service delivered 90.6 percent of first-class mail on time. It hasn’t reached 90 percent in the eight months since.
DeJoy also plans to cut retail post office hours, the people said, a return to one of the changes he first implemented. The Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General found that the agency expanded lunch breaks in certain post offices beginning July 22 and often sought to match consumer demand with operating hours by closing post offices early. DeJoy suspended the policy after a public uproar and after members of Congress accused him of shuttering postal facilities in the run-up to the election.
DeJoy also has discussed an “imminent” postage rate increase with industry officials tied to a new ruling from the Postal Regulatory Commission that created a new pricing system. Industry officials said that increase could come as soon as this summer and be as large as 9 percent, a cost many say will be passed on to customers.
Corporate Democrat Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), a notorious bribe-taker and Wall Street puppet, who Pelosi made the colossal error of appointing chair of the Oversight Committee, is working with DeJoy on a so-called “postal reform bill” instead of just removing the requirement that the post office pre-fund 75 years of retiree healthcare at once. Maloney claims her bill will do that, which would save the post office $35 billion in liabilities– money the agency has not paid into the health-care accounts since 2011. If retired postal employees are integrated into Medicare– or if Congress ever passes Medicare-For-All– the Postal Service will save another $10 billion over 10 years. Postal banking would be the most effective way to deal with this– although that doesn’t fit in with the neoliberal wing– AKA the dominant wing– of BOTH political parties.
I sure hope Biden and the congressional Democrats aren’t allowing DeJoy to shoulder the onus for a bad way to solve a hard problem that they don’t want to tackle themselves. That would be pretty disgusting.
43 comments
Comments are closed.
It seems to me that the simplest explanation is that the Democrats don’t really care about the Post Office. They just don’t want to be as crass about destroying it as DeJoy has done. For example, CBRE won a contract to provide real estate services to the USPS. The contract was fraught with controversy, including the inspector general recommending cancelation. A board member of CBRE is married to a certain senior senator from California.
https://www.uspsoig.gov/document/postal-service-management-cbre-real-estate-transactions
CBRE has since been replaced by another provider, JLL, to provide services which were historically done in-house. In addition, a large number of USPS buildings, including historic ones, are listed for sale, and the post office is leasing a lot of space. I don’t know if this ratio has changed in recent years, but given that the post office should be thinking longer term, leases should be discouraged.
Neoliberals, both Democrats and Republicans, want to keep up their smaller scale, longer term graft, which doesn’t get the same attention as DeJoy’s proposals.
The USPS is not a rich donor. Our thoroughly corrupt political duopoly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about something, anything, unless it is accompanied by a bag of money.
Had a friend who was having difficulty trying to win a small business contract here in Huntsville (DoD or NASA, I forget which, probably both). Tried for years. I asked if he had made the proper campaign donations…
Well we all know how important fund raising is to nancy…maybe “colossal error” isn’t the right term…
‘
“Corporate Democrat Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), a notorious bribe-taker and Wall Street puppet, who Pelosi made the colossal error of appointing chair of the Oversight Committee,”
Yes! I think that’s the best explanation for what’s going on here.
People like Pelosi or Biden don’t use the USPS. They use DHL couriers or other private companies. They have personal assistants to run things for them.
If Congress was forced to use USPS for ALL correspondence, we would see an immediate change.
It seems to me that an elephant (there are many) in the room is the real estate the Postal Service owns is often in prime downtown locations. I expect that the political hangers on fall asleep at night slavering over a dream of prime real estate that can be purchased for a song and then flipped.
It is not just the value of the real estate per se. If it were not for these post office locations, what is the likelihood of postal banking ever coming to fruition? I personally would like to see post office locations used for physical access points for broadband, feeding local ISPs. I am sure there are other convenient reasons not to have locations in population centers (suburban and rural) throughout the US.
Wow. Here here. Since many traditional mail services have shifted to e-mail and e-business–making Internet service even more important than our paper mail system ever was–what if the US mail service provider also shifted to support this, to capture back the market but also to supply the GREATEST COMMON WELFARE. …to supply a reliable affordable e-communication system and services accessible to all. ….instead of having these now life-essential needs being riddled with advertisements and at the mercy of horrible money-sucking cable andor fiber service monopolies.
How are so many people missing this!?!?
Your idea seems profound and logical. If, by some freak accident, you do ever gain any political power, you will have no greater supporter than I.
This is outside the USPS charter and capabilities. This is like saying a drayage company is really in the transportation business, buying a bunch of 737s, and telling the cart drivers to pilot them.
OK, I have to admit to looking up ‘drayage’, but I probably don’t need to look up the USPS charter to agree with that supporting broadband might be outside its charter, but what is to say it shouldn’t be? Email is a form of communication, much the same way snail mail functioned before. Both in its general form, internet communications and snail mail support commerce.
Did prior discussions of postal banking fall outside of the USPS charter as well?
Anyway, I did not get the analogy about cart drivers piloting 737s. Seems a bit of a stretch.
‘who Pelosi made the colossal error ‘
I am not so convinced that was an ‘error’ . She is quite calculating/knowledgeable/able. Perhaps not a mistake on her part. The plan is working to make it difficult to communicate via physical letters…
I don’t understand the opposition to significant business model reforms for the USPS.
For example, if people are sending letters, cards, etc., why would several days extra to deliver be such a big issue, as long as users clearly understood the longer time. I mean, electronic means are almost instantaneous so that would be the method of choice if time was of the essence.
Of course, priority/express would still be available and a premium paid for that service (just like today) for critical documents, time sensitive mailings, etc.
Reducing USPS branch hours also seems to make some sense. Stamp sales should be fully automated (one branch had a machine in lobby), if possible; really dumb to be standing in line to buy stamps. What I see is the branch is poorly staffed all day (I presume people in back sorting?), so perhaps more out front for reduced lobby hours could work better.
The entire package thing needs to be rethought with so many other efficient service providers. I would almost consider giving that up.
Finally, junk mail ought to pay more/a lot more. They are getting a ridiculous free ride and it’s almost all junk/garbage that no one wants.
So what would this result in? A significantly reduced USPS. Less business, less employees but hopefully a budget balanced entity.
Again, what would be wrong with moving towards this realistic approach?
All well and good if those decisions are made in good faith and NOT at the expense of delivering quality service. De Joy is NOT a man of good faith.
Some of the reforms as you’ve outlined them are key elements of what would be wrong with moving from a public service model to a business model: less service, higher prices, increased privatization of the commons to extract profit rather than to provide for the common welfare.
Because the reforms were made necessary because of pension funding requirements for workers not even born yet. It’s a created crisis, not a real crisis
“Again, what would be wrong with moving towards this realistic approach? “that” reality makes this a false statement. This is not a realistic approach, it’s a fleecing operation.
“So what would this result in? A significantly reduced USPS. Less business, less employees but hopefully a budget balanced entity.”
Yeesh…the balanced budget fairy. See above under “pension funding requirements”
This is a completely manufactured crisis, trying to gut an institution that is mandated by the Constitution for private gain, and both parties in Congress are complicit over the course of many years.
This idea that no one should ever have to stand in line again is a real pet peeve of mine. With the majority of people staring into their cell phones while they do pretty much anything out in public, I really have to wonder what great things they will be freed up to do while not standing in lines.
And do you really think private industry is that much more efficient with package delivery? Clearly you haven’t worked for a company that uses FedEx to deliver perishable items. My company insured every package shipped and if delivery was delayed, FedEx would often claim weather-related (act of God) delays so as not to have to pay the insurance claims. Another seafood shipper next door got so sick and tired of FedEx not delivering on time and then trying to weasel out of paying claims he began charting the weather at their Memphis hub. When they would claim weather-related delays, he would send them weather reports and satellite photos showing clear skies over Memphis to prove they were lying, and they eventually had to pony up, but the lost or delayed revenue put his business at risk in the meantime. Losing $100K worth of lobsters in the mail can do that to a small business.
Completely agree! USPS was how people routinely shipped live animals like chicks. And still had enough money in its budget to sponsor a professional bicycle racing team. And worked with companies to develop the technology required to automate sorting the mail. Technology that they can no longer afford to maintain.
One could argue that the reason borh Democrats and Republicans work to wreck the USPS is because showing how successful givernment can do things gives the heebie geebies to the whole anti-government neoliberal crowd, and the rich investors want to grab all that good real estate for pennies on the dollar. American oligarchs look at their Russian counterparts and want to do the same – trash the government and buy up all the good parts for a song.
Really the USPS needs to be expanded. It should provide free email and high speed internet to every person in rhe country because that is now our modern mail system. Heck, Amerans paid to develop the internet, and then gave it away, plus breaking up the tech giants can be rolled ibto beefing up the USPS.
It will be interesting to see how the US courts, which use mailing as the date to calculate many procedural time periods will adjust to missed timeframes and late filings caused by a Postal Service unable to delive mail timely.
Think of all the late fees and credit dings coming to people who pay their bills by mail. Think of all the missed grace periods in various financial dealings: bills, time deposit renewals, etc. The lower one’s credit rating, the higher one’s cost for car insurance, loan interest rates, etc.
I have seriously considered sending bills with tracking. My local until, the City of Santa Clara (welcome to California), tried to ding me with late fees when it turns out they received payment before the due date, but it was taking them a few days to process payments…..
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To establish Post Offices and post Roads; .
The postal powers of Congress embrace all measures necessary to insure the safe and speedy transit and prompt delivery of the mails.
And not only are the mails under the protection of the National Government, they are in contemplation of law its property.
I would think congress – whatever party – can act and should act – they have the power but, do the repubs or the dems want to act?? The clear answer is no!!! But why not? Because both parties depend on the legalized bribing nessasary to keep their positions of power and represent their constituency!!! But who is their constituency if most people want to ensure the continuance of this constitutional institution? The folks who stand to gain the most coin !!!
My theory: The Biden admin is a wholly own subsidiary of Wall St. and the “bipartisan” donors (including DeJoy).
If Biden and the Democrats keep Louis DeJoy in place, would this have an effect on mail-in votes in the 2022 midterms as he and the Board are all Trump appointees? They could do some serious damage given enough time and opportunity.
The Democrats consider “serious damage to mailing in the mail-in ballots” as an acceptable risk to run in return for getting to exterminate the USPS and privatise the remains. This is, after all , the ” Feinstein’s husband” Democrats we are talking about here.
I had originally thought the Postmaster general was a direct presidential appointee, but after finding out that they are not and that removing DeJoy is not so simple, I had to wonder how he ever got in there in the first place.
Looks like his predecessor retired after fulfilling her term, so it wasn’t like Trump went out of his way to remove her and put in a crony. I did find this article from the LA Times that raises more questions than it answers – https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-08-21/dejoy-appointment-postmaster-dishonest
The best I can tell from that article is Trump got played as a useful idiot by Mnuchin, who shouldn’t have been involved with the appointment process to begin with. Trump clearly did not like the Post Office deal with Amazon as he mentioned many times, and the article asserts –
Trump may have made his assertions without foundation, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. The Amazon deal is very vague from what I’ve read, but there have been links posted at NC in the past showing the sweet deal Amazon is getting. And then there is the USPS Sunday(!) delivery being done just for Amazon, so hard to argue they aren’t getting special favors.
Anyway, Mnuchin’s man DeJoy clearly was not interested in sticking it to Amazon as Trump may have hoped, since he took out options contracts on Amazon the same month he was being appointed postmaster according to the article.
But we already know that the reason Mnuchin in a position to be a Trump appointee was because Kamala Harris neglected to prosecute him when she had the opportunity to, and he later donated to her Senate campaign – https://theintercept.com/2017/01/03/treasury-nominee-steve-mnuchins-bank-accused-of-widespread-misconduct-in-leaked-memo/
So while it isn’t as simple as Biden just naming a new postmaster, it does seem pretty clear the Democrats could remove DeJoy if they really wanted to, just like Mnuchin would never have been in a position to manipulate DeJoy into the job in the first place had the Democrats really not wanted him around.
Harris didn’t merely neglect to prosecute Mnuchin, she actively and successfully obstructed and prevented any effort to prosecute him. It wasn’t mere neglect on her part. I speculate, based on pure feelings, that she sensed that immunising and impunifying Mnuchin would get her some kind of Obama-type reward sometime in the future.
And it has. It got her chosen to be Vice President on the Biden ticket.
-“If Biden wanted to stop [DeJoy], there have got to be ways to do so short of a much-deserved bullet between the eyes.”
How about designating DeJoy as a terrorist – after all, he is actively trying to sabotage the USPO (an official gov’t institution). Then just “drone” him. No trial required. The precedent has already been set…
This solution has my backing.
The thing I can’t figure is that in many small rural communities the PO is one of the few meet and greet places for the locals. It’s a very important neighborhood social touchstone. A few years ago there was a big push to shut down many of these ‘inefficient’ rural operations…all hell broke loose, and the plan was shelved. So, how come the local pols, many of whom are Repubs., aren’t focused on the issue of a healthy and serviceable PO? Maybe they have bigger and lucrative fish to fry.
In my rural North Carolina county, we were about to get low-cost, high-speed internet, which the county had secured, about 10 years back.
Then our Republican state legislature made that sort of set-up illegal. “It would crush free market development!”
Republicans don’t deliver crap for rural voters.
I am currently hoping my $99 deposit for Musk’s Starlink works out!
OK, that was unfair, Republicans do stuff for big farmers in rural areas.
But that’s about it.
Living in rural America is another universe from the rest of y’all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/politics/joe-biden-usps.html
This Times article dates to February 24th. My question is why Congress hasn’t fast tracked these Democrat board appointments. It looks as if Biden had tried to address this obvious and grotesquely corrupt cronyism more than a month ago.
Perhaps because the Democratic Majority Congress wants to give DeJoy time to get the USPS destroyed?
Postal banking would be the most effective way to deal with this– although that doesn’t fit in with the neoliberal wing– AKA the dominant wing– of BOTH political parties. Howie Klein
A Postal Bank that lends, instead of just being a fiat storage and transaction service, is bound to violate equal protection under the law – in favor of the more so-called “credit worthy.”
So money lending should be an entirely private sector business anyway.
Not that our current government-privileged banking cartel is private – far from it – and we should fix that.
Btw, I read that FDR was initially opposed to a government-provided deposit guarantee but that public demand for it was overwhelming. Now look where we are…
Oh well, it boosts my faith to see that government privileges for usury is a rock the US (and ROW) is wrecking itself upon.
I apologize if I missed this in the above, but how will all this affect “vote by mail?”
My guess: DeJoy will try outsourcing ‘vote delivery’ to some private company by claiming the USPS can’t handle the vote mail volume in a timely manner. / ;)
In order to correct a Fraud by United Health Care (they signed a friend up for a new policy and failed to cancel old policy as promised), we must wait 10-13 days for a first class letter containing “proof of coverage” so we can prove to one part of UHC that she has a policy with another part of UHC.
I cancelled autopay today to prevent them charging another months premium in case the letter does not arrive in time.
Also, why is United health care permitted to use a name that implies that they provide health care?
I recently made a tidy sum because a law firm claimed to have sent a notice by a required date- and it had played games. Also, the PO is very important in small towns- Trump territory; is that a factor?
Both the price rates given to Amazon- and nobody else- and the real cost of junk mail are hard for me to estimate. The latter is definitely a “Bribe Congress” problem but the Amazon situation… I’m not sure. Are any of the NC readers really up to speed on how this PO cost and pension situation happened and what the real costs and revenues are by product line?
Apparently much of the present PO liability is accrued pensions, or so I’ve read. The press tells us nothing about the legal situation and the talking heads are as bad. Was the PO pension supposed to have been fully funded when it was part of the government and turned out not to be? When it went private what was the actual agreement in writing on how this liability would be accounted for and paid for? I hear the unions are partly to blame- the pension was supposed to be funded but, like many state systems, it was all smoke-and-mirrors and the union knew it; they wanted high cash salaries and assumed Uncle Sugar would be on the line for the retirements reguardless of the legal fiction. But then ithe pension would be listed as a liability and added to the national debt- which wasn’t going to happen- the Reps were not going to see a forced deficit ceiling increase and the Dems were unwilling to make cuts elsewhere.
So, please, is there a knowledgable reader out there willing to pound the keys for a few minutes and let us know what the real history is here?
um…well… no expert here, but…
The “junk mail” bulk rate subsidizes the “first class” mail rate to all mail recipients far and wide. I accept my weekly receipt of junk mail, annoying as it might be, as the price of being able to send a low cost first-class birthday card to anywhere in the US, including to my great uncle Royce in Alaska.
The postal carriers who deliver the mails to all, even to the hard to reach addresses, have made the mail delivery in this country a shining star in the world of countries where “ancient ways say that only money matters”.
Think of, aside from affordably sending my great uncle a birthday card, the many businesses that built out their success on the reliable delivery of the US Mail. I know you can think of many of them: Sears, eBay, Wards, etc. The UPSP is an infrastructure that’s made the US the dynamic economy it is and has become. imo.
My 2 cents.
adding: in general, the people looking to scam you are counting on you to not understand and to not investigate “how things really work.”
Below is a link to a 2019 post by congressman Bill Pascrell Jr.(D-NJ-09) with history of the postal service, and his recommendations for revitalization and expansion. He’s unsurprisingly more critical of Republicans than Democrats, though of course it’s a bipartisan failure.
Scroll to “the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970” for a few paragraphs on the undermining of the service, including the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act which required the excessive prefunding of retiree health benefits.
The House passed HR 2382 in 2020 to end the prefunding requirement but no further action in the Senate. There are bills in the House and Senate again for this Congress but nothing’s happened with them.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2019/congress-is-sabotaging-your-post-office/
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/695/
“H.R.695 – To amend title 5, United States Code, to repeal the requirement that the United States Postal Service prepay future retirement benefits, and for other purposes.”
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/145
“The Postal Service’s delivery scores have rebounded in recent weeks, to nearly 83.7 percent for first-class mail the week of March 12. The agency attributed the improvement to more capacity in the air transportation network and the end of winter storms that delayed operations in much of the country.”
I would attribute the improvement, at least in part, to coverage like this making the point to the citizenry that there’s something really wrong with how the USPS is being run, which can lead to more pressure on Biden/Congress to do something about it. (Biden should not need the encouragement, because continuing postal fails will wind up slitting his throat in public opinion, not so much DeJoy, but he and his administration do not seem to be doing the math on that.)
I hope NC will keep a close eye on this issue, and continue to help spread the word that this is a major issue, though perhaps hidden in the eyes of many.
As long as the De Joyans remain in power over the USPS, they will not be bothered by the ” greater transparency and etc.” changes proposed to somehow pressure them into changing their plans.
They will endure the airing of their dirty underwear as the price to pay for being able to exterminate the USPS and to monetize the profitizable parts of the wreckage.
Only a swift and savage replacement of the Board with pro-USPS members who would swiftly and savagely remove the DeJoyans will save the USPS from this accelerated extermination plan. Will the ” Feinstein’s husband” Democrats support such a swift and savage replacement of the Board?
I suspect that anything designed to make the USPS itself look like a defrauder-of-the-public will simply be used to exterminate the USPS even faster. After all, if the public is convinced that the USPS has been defrauding them all along, the public will swing around to support the DeJoy plan.
I believe that approach should not be risked.
I would also suggest that NaCap readers begin training and learning now how to live in a world without any more USPS.
Forty years ago I would be watching a 60 Minutes special on De Joy with my family. Today it is not quite crickets.
There was a postal savings system for 56 years, but its was closed because of it supposedly being redundant. With the many and increasing number of financial deserts it would be wise to recreate it.