Editorial: Keeping the U.S. Postal Service an essential service
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People talk a lot about what built America.
Legislators. Presidents. Soldiers and settlers. Farmers and business, teachers and explorers. None of that is wrong. It does, however, neglect the element that connects them all.
Communication. Specifically, the mail.
When the original 13 states were just colonies, the first cities of New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were connected by post routes.
The importance of having post offices and postal roads was spelled out in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, after Congress’ ability to collect taxes and coin money but before the ability to declare war or maintain military forces. The presidency wasn’t mentioned until Article 2. Sorry, George Washington.
The mail hasn’t always been the daily ritual it is in most places today, but it’s been an important building block of making society accountable and legal. The mail helped settle new territories and connect new states.
The mail defined new transportation routes — building roads and utilizing new inventions like trains and airplanes. It implemented new technologies, like the telegraph. It was the one government office most communities could count on, serving as a touchstone for information, authority and even as a poor man’s bank.
That’s a legacy that should never be threatened by politics, especially at a time when so many Americans are relying on the Postal Service more than ever for deliveries of everything from groceries to medication to U.S. Census documents to, yes, ballots for the November election. It is a critical cog in the machine of a quarantine life.
The U.S. Postal Service is a $72 billion a year enterprise that moves 55 billion letters and packages a year. It connects us to each other, our money, the things we like, the things we are obligated to do and our government.
The Postal Service has had problems in recent years, but they haven’t necessarily been problems of its own making. Congress had placed requirements on postal pensions that have been taxing.
It is not surprising that the Trump administration outlined change. It is also not surprising that those changes were alarming to some on both sides of the aisle in the run-up to the presidential election.
What is a little surprising was Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s announcement Tuesday that those efforts would be on hold until after the election, an announcement that came about the same time Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and his Washington state counterpart, Bob Ferguson, were announcing multistate lawsuits over them.
Now it is up to both sides to prove that politics is not as important as the people’s needs.
The administration needs to ensure that the Postal Service will continue to function smoothly, efficiently and without bias. The Democrats and legislators on both sides need to be remain vigilant, welcoming DeJoy’s Tuesday statement but making sure he and the administration follow through. They should also seek to reverse many of the cutbacks that have taken place under DeJoy.
The mail may be the one aspect of government that touches every American more than anything else, and always has been. That is too important to be reduced to a ploy.