by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
I have a long and happy history with the United States Postal Service, one that extends back well into the 1950s - a time when peace and sanity prevailed in the White House under a Republican named Dwight Eisenhower, and a three-cent stamp would take a letter any place in the whole United States - and postcards could be mailed for a penny.
I was born in 1948, and I know that I was personally using the services of the "post office" (the name the USPS went by at that time) because my fifth grade teacher, a wonderful woman by the name of Boonetta Davis, had a class project where each student chose a city in the United States and sent a letter to that city's Chamber of Commerce asking for information about the city. We then mailed those letters from home and ran to the mailbox each day checking for replies. After the materials arrived we set up a classroom display. That lesson taught us how to write business letters, and it also provided a wealth of geographical information about our country.
(My city was Palm Springs, California, and their Chamber of Commerce sent a ton of good stuff!)
Invitations to birthday parties came and went in the mail, as did letters from friends and relatives, newspapers, advertisements - and even the occasional package. What fun it was to run to the house carrying a package that the postman had just delivered!
In the 1970's after I had finished my four years in the Army, I even worked for the post office for a few months as a substitute mail carrier. I was living in a very rural part of southwest Missouri (McDonald County) and my route took me down several secluded dirt lanes that were little more than cowpaths. But the post office had a responsibility through the Rural Free Delivery initiative of the New Deal, to get the mail to as many people as humanly possible. Today it still travels those same cow paths and has some daily deliveries that must be accomplished by boat - or even plane.
Now I am a ripe old seventy-two, and I still keep one eye peeled for the mailman each afternoon. The arrival of the mail is literally one of my daily highlights.
Getting the mail out each day requires considerable skill and commitment on the part of postal employees, but it is a duty that they take very seriously - and it is one on which almost all Americans depend. In a very real sense, the post office is America!
But now, unbelievably, we have a President who refers to the post office as "a joke" and openly roots for its demise.
Donald Trump's anger with the post office is rooted in the fact that he has a long-standing personal grudge against Jeff Bezos, a true billionaire and the richest human on the planet with an estimated worth of over $116 billion. Bezos owns Amazon.com and the Washington Post newspaper. The Washington Post and several other major U.S. newspapers have been critical of Donald Trump and his actions and policies on numerous occasion, and Trump, known to be exceedingly petty, does not take criticism well.
As the major mail retailer in the nation, Amazon has struck deals with all of the large carriers - companies like FedEx, UPS, and the United States Postal Service - for special rates in shipping its massive volume of packages. Early on Trump saw the Amazon arrangement with the postal service as a way to get at Bezos, and from that point onward he has been relentless in his criticism of that agency for what he termed a losing proposition with Amazon.
Here is a Trump tweet from 2017:
There may come a time when every household in the United States is blessed with a totally reliable and affordable internet connection, and there are enough private package delivery services to reach every home in the country - but that time is not yet at hand. Today America needs the postal service far more than it needs the ravings of Donald John Trump.
When Trump attacks our postal system in an attempt to get at Jeff Bezos, he is degrading one of the best and most cherished institutions in the history of our nation, and he is impugning the character and work ethic of hundreds of thousands of good and faithful Americans who dedicate their lives to delivering our mail in a timely and efficient manner.
If Trump wants to challenge Bezos to a pissing contest on the National Mall, that's his business - but if he wants to get at Bezos by screwing with the U.S. Mail - well, that's OUR business, and Trump had best think long and hard before he goes down that road.
If the mail quits running, there will be consequences!
Citizen Journalist
I have a long and happy history with the United States Postal Service, one that extends back well into the 1950s - a time when peace and sanity prevailed in the White House under a Republican named Dwight Eisenhower, and a three-cent stamp would take a letter any place in the whole United States - and postcards could be mailed for a penny.
I was born in 1948, and I know that I was personally using the services of the "post office" (the name the USPS went by at that time) because my fifth grade teacher, a wonderful woman by the name of Boonetta Davis, had a class project where each student chose a city in the United States and sent a letter to that city's Chamber of Commerce asking for information about the city. We then mailed those letters from home and ran to the mailbox each day checking for replies. After the materials arrived we set up a classroom display. That lesson taught us how to write business letters, and it also provided a wealth of geographical information about our country.
(My city was Palm Springs, California, and their Chamber of Commerce sent a ton of good stuff!)
Invitations to birthday parties came and went in the mail, as did letters from friends and relatives, newspapers, advertisements - and even the occasional package. What fun it was to run to the house carrying a package that the postman had just delivered!
In the 1970's after I had finished my four years in the Army, I even worked for the post office for a few months as a substitute mail carrier. I was living in a very rural part of southwest Missouri (McDonald County) and my route took me down several secluded dirt lanes that were little more than cowpaths. But the post office had a responsibility through the Rural Free Delivery initiative of the New Deal, to get the mail to as many people as humanly possible. Today it still travels those same cow paths and has some daily deliveries that must be accomplished by boat - or even plane.
Now I am a ripe old seventy-two, and I still keep one eye peeled for the mailman each afternoon. The arrival of the mail is literally one of my daily highlights.
Getting the mail out each day requires considerable skill and commitment on the part of postal employees, but it is a duty that they take very seriously - and it is one on which almost all Americans depend. In a very real sense, the post office is America!
But now, unbelievably, we have a President who refers to the post office as "a joke" and openly roots for its demise.
Donald Trump's anger with the post office is rooted in the fact that he has a long-standing personal grudge against Jeff Bezos, a true billionaire and the richest human on the planet with an estimated worth of over $116 billion. Bezos owns Amazon.com and the Washington Post newspaper. The Washington Post and several other major U.S. newspapers have been critical of Donald Trump and his actions and policies on numerous occasion, and Trump, known to be exceedingly petty, does not take criticism well.
As the major mail retailer in the nation, Amazon has struck deals with all of the large carriers - companies like FedEx, UPS, and the United States Postal Service - for special rates in shipping its massive volume of packages. Early on Trump saw the Amazon arrangement with the postal service as a way to get at Bezos, and from that point onward he has been relentless in his criticism of that agency for what he termed a losing proposition with Amazon.
Here is a Trump tweet from 2017:
Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!And yesterday Trump once again exploded publicly regarding the U.S. Postal Service, calling it "a joke" and saying that he would block stimulus loans to the agency that have already been approved by Congress unless it quadruples shipping rates on packages shipped by large retailers. And again he mentioned Amazon by name. Increased shipping rates would ultimately fall on consumers - and at a time when more people are relying on shopping by mail than ever before, thanks in large measure to the current pandemic that has left so many Americans stranded at home.
There may come a time when every household in the United States is blessed with a totally reliable and affordable internet connection, and there are enough private package delivery services to reach every home in the country - but that time is not yet at hand. Today America needs the postal service far more than it needs the ravings of Donald John Trump.
When Trump attacks our postal system in an attempt to get at Jeff Bezos, he is degrading one of the best and most cherished institutions in the history of our nation, and he is impugning the character and work ethic of hundreds of thousands of good and faithful Americans who dedicate their lives to delivering our mail in a timely and efficient manner.
If Trump wants to challenge Bezos to a pissing contest on the National Mall, that's his business - but if he wants to get at Bezos by screwing with the U.S. Mail - well, that's OUR business, and Trump had best think long and hard before he goes down that road.
If the mail quits running, there will be consequences!
2 comments:
Article I, §8, clause 7 grants Congress the exclusive power “To establish Post Offices and Post Roads. The President has no authority over abolishing the USPS, a Federal agency under the auspices of the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent Federal agency that provides transparency and accountability of USPS operations.
An attempt to abolish the Post Office would have many unintended consequences. For instance the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure mandate the use of the USPS, often using registered or certified prepaid postage, to assure that summons, answers, and other legal documents are actually sent to either the courts or opposing parties. See Generally, Fed. R. Civ. P. 4, which contains the word “mail” 105 times in reference to the services of the USPS and once when referencing e-mail (and that on information to be included under the signature line when mailing a notice of a lawsuit and a request to waive service, which must be responded to by return mail).
Another hitch is this scheme to abolish the USPS is that private delivery companies would have to deliver their own parcels as their customers pay them to do. Instead one company with large brown trucks and employees wearing brown uniforms frequently “delivers” their packages via the USPS. Without the post office the costs of delivery would needlessly skyrocket because corporations care about profits more than anything else.
Let us not forget the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. This is the law requiring the USPS, which receives no taxpayer funding, to prefund their retirees’ health benefits through the year 2058. This means there is a gigantic pool of money obligated to retired persons, some of whom aren’t born yet, circulating around the Treasury. One thing we know about greedy Republicans and vulture capitalists is that they covet the pools of money earmarked for retired persons. This unbridled greed, and nothing more, is behind Republican attempts to abolish the USPS.
There are many good reasons for keeping the post offices in our communities. There is no good reason to abolish them.
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