Trump Goes Anti-Postal

By DON ROLLINS

When it comes to unpopular federal agencies, few get taken to the woodshed like the US Post Office.

Rather than a necessary entity, subject to time and circumstance, the Post Office was long ago seized upon by politicians looking for an easy scapegoat. Nationalized primarily by Ben Franklin a year before the Revolution began, early antifederalists led by Patrick Henry criticized the agency as inept, and a waste of resources.

The pattern continues. Caught once again in the crosshairs of a capricious government, today’s USPS is facing an existential dilemma the likes of which Henry and his colonial sympathizers could only imagine: a friendly executive branch.

It’s not that Team Trump hasn’t invented or exploited a struggling federal entity before; recall the excoriating rhetoric and deep cuts already leveled at the Departments of Education, Labor, Housing, Agriculture and the EPA — agencies directly related to the well being of the nation as a whole, and the poorest among us in particular.

But the latest denial of emergency funding to USPS is particularly heinous, given several reasons: 

First, USPS employees are at increased risk for contracting the Coronavirus, but Trump seems oblivious. Dozens have tested positive, some 2,000 are or have been quarantined and at least three deaths were due to the virus. 

Unlike the administration’s much-deserved recognition of medical caregivers, first responders and all those most in harm’s way, postal employees are absent in White House briefings. at increased risks particular to their work;

Second, the timing could not be worse. Epidemiologists not co-opted by the administration predict — controlling for current protocols — the virus may be at its peak. With revenues down a third over this time last year, USPS predicts it will run out of funds in September, opening the door to possible privatization; 

Third, USPS is historically funded entirely by the money it generates. And it hasn’t made budget for decades.

In response, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, is offering a mere $10 billion loan in response to the Post Office’s requested $90 million bailout over 10 years. Mnuchin is yet to explain the logic of a chronically indebted agency making good on such a loan;

Fourth, remember rural America? For all the inroads made by delivery companies, the US mail remains a lifeline to millions living outside even midsize population centers;

Fifth, 21% of the agency’s 600,000 workers are African American, making USPS one of the most integrated bodies in the entire government. Although possessed of internal racial inequities, the Post Office is strides ahead of many agencies;

Sixth, something stinks here. Trump has openly registered disdain for Amazon magnate, Jeff Bezos; who, in addition to infusing life into USPS with a major shipping agreement, owns a newspaper (Washington Post) that regularly holds Trump and his toxic presidency to account. 

What better way to get some payback than to starve USPS into a hostile, private takeover?

USPS is at points responsible for the straights in which it finds itself, including the crush of skyrocketing pension funds. Worse, the agency’s profile is tarnished by multiple lawsuits based on sexual harassment, discriminatory hiring and promoting practices, labor law violations and tenuring incompetent employees. 

Nobody’s saying the Post Office is the beacon of everything right with America. Hardly. But if it’s to go the way of the 25-cent stamp, let it not be because of another sophomoric Trump grudge match.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2020

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