Liberals would have you believe that President Donald J. Trump is engaged in a wild conspiracy to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service. The conspiracy theory includes allegations that postal mailboxes are disappearing throughout the nation, sorters are being put out of commission to slow mail delivery, and that the new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, is secretly plotting to destroy the USPS from within.
The actual conspiracy is that Democrats are lying and exaggerating claims about the USPS. They are playing the voter suppression card while a Saturday House vote on a $25 billion, no reform, bailout is scheduled. They will accuse Republicans of voting against a free and fair election if they don’t vote for the bailout. They will continue to make bogus claims that the coronavirus pandemic, not gross mismanagement, is the reason for the USPS chaos.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee is having a hearing titled “Examining the Finances and Operations of the United States Postal Service During COVID-19 and Upcoming Elections.” Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) can correct the record and inject some sanity into the debate with facts. The bottom line is that USPS is losing tens of billions a year and a bailout will reward them for failure.
The first fact that liberals ignore is that the postal service is losing massive amounts of taxpayer cash every year. The Heritage Foundation’s Romina Boccia warned, “the U.S. Postal Service is approaching bankruptcy following 13 consecutive years of multi-billion-dollar deficits.” A Treasury Task Force on the USPS reported in 2018, “the USPS is forecast to lose tens of billions of dollars over the next decade. Further, as of the end of FY 2018, the USPS balance sheet reflects $89 billion in liabilities against $27 billion in assets – a net deficiency of $62 billion.” A bailout will excuse losses and remove any incentive for reform.
The second fact that liberals gloss over is that the USPS’s slow delivery of snail mail is because of online sellers like Amazon. In May, The New York Times reported, “a coalition of online retailers backed by Amazon began a seven-figure advertising blitz on Wednesday opposing President Trump’s demand that the beleaguered United States Postal Service ratchet up its package delivery rates to avoid bankruptcy amid the coronavirus crisis, its top lobbyist said.” This $2 million campaign to stop reform should lead the House and Senate to call Jeff Bezos of Amazon as a witness to explain if the coalition of online sellers have caused ‘voter suppression’ through political pressure on the USPS.
On Saturday, the Democrat theater in the Congress continues with a vote on a bill pulled together by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to provide $25 billion and to “block organizational changes at the Postal Service that Democrats say are politically motivated and threaten to jeopardize the presidential election by inhibiting mail-in voting,” Politico reports. The House Democrats will be in full partisan mode when they take to the House floor to loudly accuse the Trump administration of fixing the election, even though the Trump administration has promised to stop reform of the postal service during the election to remove any appearance of impropriety.
On Monday, House Democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee will ambush Postmaster General DeJoy in a hearing with raised voices and allegations that he is trying to fix the fall elections for Republicans. Rep. James Comer (R-KY) will do his best to defend the Postmaster from the expected allegations of corruption, racism and voter suppression to come from radical Committee Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Thankfully Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) will be there to fight the radical left with facts.
Every American turned to online sellers during the coronavirus because they were confined to shopping online. This led to some short-term growth in postal revenues while regular mail continues to decline. There is no case to be made that the coronavirus pandemic caused the problems at the USPS, so the Democrats have pivoted to their favorite boogeyman – President Donald J. Trump. They don’t need facts when they can blame him.
Over the next few days, the left in Congress will do their best to push the post office conspiracy theory and continue to blame President Donald Trump for all the ills of the nation. When the media reports on the Senate hearing, House bailout vote, and then the House Oversight ambush, remember the facts. The U.S. Postal Service is a government agency that is functioning inefficiently. Reform, not bailouts and fearmongering, is needed to fix that mess.
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