Putting the snail in mail -- March 25, 2021 column

 By MARSHA MERCER

Remember Save the Post Office Saturday?

The demonstrations weren’t huge, but thousands protested outside post offices last August against Postal Service cuts.

Democratic lawmakers, fuming that President Trump was trying to cripple mail service to discourage millions from casting ballots by mail, called for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump mega-contributor and appointee, to resign. He delayed the cuts.

It’s 2021 and Joe Biden is president. Crisis averted? Not exactly.

DeJoy still runs the post office, and Tuesday he announced a new round of cuts to save the financially struggling Postal Service.

The “Delivering for America” plan in brief: slower mail at higher prices. You don’t need a crystal ball to predict that won’t sit well with the American people or Congress.

Instead of delivering first class letters in one to three days, as it tries to do now, the service wants a five-day goal. To save money, more mail would go by truck and less by plane. Perhaps horses weren’t available.

The plan would cut hours at post office windows, because Americans love to stand in line at the P.O. And it would raise mailing rates.

The agency has lost $87 billion over the last 14 years. The plan is supposed to reverse a projected loss of $160 billion over the next decade.

But to reduce service and raise prices at a time when many Americans already distrust government seems tone deaf at least. We need to build up our institutions, not make them less efficient and less customer-friendly.

The Postal Service consistently ranks as the country’s most popular government agency. An astonishing 91 percent of respondents last April had a favorable view of it – higher than any other federal agency, a Pew Research Center survey found.

Strictly speaking, the Postal Service is not run by the federal government; it’s an independent agency that receives no direct taxpayer funding, relying on revenue from stamps and other fees.

Its sterling reputation has been tarnished. Trump had a gripe against Amazon and wanted to force the Postal Service to raise shipping rates, and he wanted to cast doubt on the integrity of mail-in voting.

The Postal Service’s election performance was better than many expected. On average, the service said, it delivered ballots to voters in 2.1 days and from voters to election officials in 1.6 days.

The holidays saw a record 25% growth in the volume of shipping and packages, which resulted in highly publicized delivery delays. On the upside, shipping revenue rose $2.1 billion. The agency plans to focus more on its package business.

While many Democrats want Biden to fire DeJoy, the president lacks that authority. The postmaster general serves at the pleasure of the nine-member Postal Service Board of Governors for an indefinite period. DeJoy enjoys the support of Trump’s appointees on the board.

“Get used to me,” DeJoy told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform last month.

Biden has nominated three people to fill board vacancies and replaced the head of the Postal Regulatory Commission, which sets postal rates and has other oversight authority, with his own nominee.

Mailing a letter in the United States costs less than in most other countries, DeJoy’s plan notes. Currently the “Forever” stamp for first-class letters costs 55 cents and a postcard stamp is 36 cents. The plan wants flexibility to raise rates but doesn’t say by how much.

The plan avoids some of the most unpopular cuts floated in the past. It keeps open most post offices, even in rural areas, and maintains mail deliveries six days a week and package deliveries seven days a week.

Raising the price of stamps won’t solve the Postal Service’s problems. Congress in a 2006 “reform” ordered the service to pre-pay its retiree healthcare program decades into the future.

 DeJoy’s plan calls for repealing the requirement and enrolling retirees instead in Medicare, saving $44 billion over 10 years. Congressional Democrats have legislation to do just that.

The Postal Service “binds our nation together in a way that no other agency or organization does,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the Oversight committee at the hearing.

No other entity in the world has to pre-pay a benefit 75 years in advance, said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the Government Operations subcommittee, adding that Congress has an obligation to fix the problem it created.

It’s time Congress acted to restructure the Postal Service so it can provide its valuable services for decades to come. Email and texts have their place, but nothing can replace a letter.

©Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Vote by mail -- yes, but . . . July 16, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The old adage about voting “early and often” may be half true this Election Day.

With more voters than ever likely to cast absentee ballots Nov. 3, more will be relying on the U.S. Postal Service. Voting early is advisable.

Major operational changes the new postmaster general is making that could slow mail service are disconcerting, especially as problems with undelivered absentee ballots already have popped up around the country during primary season.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told postal employees Monday in memos obtained and verified by The Washington Post the agency must operate more like a private business, would prohibit overtime and curtail other measures post offices use to deliver mail when understaffed.

Traditionally, the postal service has been run as a service, going the extra mile, so to speak, to make multiple trips to deliver letters and packages rather than leaving them in distribution centers overnight. No more.

“If plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day,” a memo titled “New PMG’s [Postmaster General’s] expectations and plan” said, the Post reported.

Congressional allies of the Postal Service were quick to criticize the changes.

“If these reports are accurate, Trump and his cronies are openly seeking to destroy the post office during the worst public health crisis in a century,” Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said in a statement.

“With states now reliant on voting by mail to continue elections during the pandemic, the destabilizing of the post office is a direct attack on American democracy itself,” said Pascrell.

DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman and Trump mega-donor, took over as postmaster general in June at a critical time. President Donald Trump in April called the Postal Service “a joke” and said it should quadruple its package delivery fees, a move apparently aimed at Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, who owns the Post.

The beleaguered Postal Service is actually faring better financially during the pandemic because of the strong demand for package deliveries. Companies often use the postal service for “last mile” local deliveries.

But even before the latest cost-cutting measures, the Postal Service has struggled to adjust to a surge in absentee ballots. In 2020, many more voters are choosing to vote from home rather than stand in long lines.

In Dallas, some voters who had mailed in their absentee ballots for Tuesday’s elections unaccountably received them back only a day or two before the election, The Dallas Morning News reported.

In Wisconsin, three tubs of absentee ballot were found at a Milwaukee post office after the polls closed for the April 7 election. In addition, absentee ballots requested were not delivered and hundreds more mailed by voters were not postmarked.

Requests for absentee ballots in Wisconsin have soared 440% since 2016, a Postal Service inspector general report found, adding that date changes for mailing and completing ballots due to the coronavirus also complicated the spring elections.

The IG report identified potential nationwide issues it said could affect future elections. Among them: Some states set too-short deadlines to request absentee ballots, ballots lack mail-tracking technology and poor communication between the Postal Service and election offices.

About half the states have deadlines to request ballots of less than a week before Election Day. These deadlines “put ballots at high risk of not being delivered to voters before an election,” the report warned.

In Virginia, the deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is 5 p.m. Oct. 23, but a voter can request an absentee ballot online or vote in person at their local registrar’s office 45 days before Election Day. You no longer need a reason to vote early in person or to cast an absentee ballot.

If you’re returning your ballot by mail, it must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by your registrar by noon on the third day after the election. Rules are slightly different for first time voters. See Virginia rules.  

No one knows what the novel coronavirus will be doing Nov. 3. So, don’t wait until the last minute. Vote early. America needs every ballot to count.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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