The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the country has had a drastic effect on the United States Postal Service, as it has on so many activities of our daily lives. It is projected that the Postal Service is facing bankruptcy this fall without emergency help from Congress.
The Postal Service traces its origin to the United States Constitution. Our Founding Fathers granted Congress the power to establish post offices and post roads in Section Eight of Article One of the document. The post office agency was known as the U.S. Post Office Department of the federal government until 1971, when President Richard Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act, which established a quasi-government, self-sustaining U.S. Postal Service to function under a Board of Governors.
The agency has no access to taxpayers’ dollars.
With the advent of the internet, the Postal Service lost its biggest source of revenue, first-class mail. Seeking another source of business, the Postal Service has taken on the delivery of packages for Amazon. The president has been critical of this, claiming the agency is handling these packages at a rate that is a loss. He has hinted several times for the privatization of the Postal Service. This course of action would be disastrous to the American public.
The Postal Service annually is voted the most trusted agency of our federal government by the American public. With over 600,000 employees, many of them veterans, the agency reaches every household and business in our country on a daily basis. With so much money being allocated to so many as a stimulus to combat the pandemic, it is imperative for Congress to come to the rescue of the U.S. Postal Service, as well.
Walt Borla, retired postmaster, Sandy