The U.S. Post Office will be getting all kinds of attention on Capitol Hill over the next few days. The Democrats and their media accomplices have been promoting conspiracy theories claiming President Trump is using the postal services to sabotage the 2020 election while using the opportunity to throw more money at the postal services.
On Friday, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs will hold a hearing with the post master general about the finances and operations of the USPS during COVID-19 and upcoming elections. Next, in a rare Saturday session, the House of Representatives will vote on the Democrats’ bill to fund the postal service to the tune of $25 billion. On the following Monday, the House of Representatives will hear from the post master general, who they have smeared with claims of partisanship for his efforts to reform the ailing service.
Expect Senate Homeland Security Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to debunk the conspiracy theories surrounding the post master general’s efforts to improve operations of the ailing mail service, and on Monday, House Oversight Committee Ranking Member James Comer (R-KY) will do the same in the House’s hearing. Why is the House voting (Saturday) to give more money to the post office before they hear from the post master general (Monday)?
As it stands, the post office has everything it needs to handle the 2020 election. The post office is legally required to prioritize mail delivery, like ballots, over other mailed items like packages. 39 USC 101(e) reads: “In determining all policies for postal services, the Postal Service shall give the highest consideration to the requirement for the most expeditious collection, transportation, and delivery of important letter mail.” Claims that President Trump is undermining the service to give him an advantage in the 2020 election are ridiculous. Trump has criticized the post office’s performance back in April of this year, well before there was talk of relying on the the service to handle increased mail voting.
“The post office, if they raised the price of a package by approximately four times, it would be a whole new ballgame,” the president said during the signing of the coronavirus relief package. “But they don’t want to raise it because they don’t want to insult Amazon, and they don’t want to insult other companies, perhaps, that they like. The post office should raise the price of the packages to the companies. Not to the people, to the companies. If they did that, it would be a whole different story.”
Instead of reforming the service to meet relevant demands, the Democrats want to condition bail out money by forcing the post office to continue the status quo (their bailout legislation will “block organizational changes”) despite a decline in First-Class mail volume by 34 percent over the last 10 years. The post office’s problems pre-date the pandemic, the USPS has lost a staggering $78 billion since 2007 which points to serious structural problems with the USPS business model. Giving the service a massive bailout with out structural reforms is a big mistake especially because the Democrats are using a made up conspiracy theory as cover to abuse taxpayer money. Senator Johnson and Rep. Comer must not let the Democrats get away with their conspiracy theories and waste of taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers deserve to hear real information about what is going on at the post office and what reforms the post master general is trying to make to help service without whacky stories ginned up by the media and the Democrats.