Privatizing the USPS is a terrible idea

I am alarmed and appalled by the Trump administration’s gutting of the U.S. Postal Service, an institution so critical to the functioning of democracy that it is enshrined in the Constitution.

Privatizing the USPS is a terrible idea in the best of times. We need a well-resourced, public postal service to deliver mail to every part of the country. Otherwise, what’s to stop a privatized post office from charging rural “customers” more for delivery or to stop delivery to rural areas altogether because it is not profitable? The USPS is a public good; we should not require it to break even or make a profit any more than we would require the military to.

Then there is the highly suspicious timing of the Trump administration’s move. President Donald Trump’s appointee as postmaster general dramatically slowed the delivery of mail and instituted a hiring freeze at the very moment we need the USPS to deliver unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots. (And lest anyone object to mail-in ballots, they have been used safely in multiple states for years, were passed into law by the Republican-controlled state Legislature, and are absolutely essential for public safety during a global pandemic that has already cost the lives of 170,000 Americans.) The president’s move to cripple the USPS at this pivotal time appears to be utterly cynical and politically motivated, designed to slow the mail and thus suppress the vote to avoid a loss in November. Otherwise, why couldn’t it wait until after the election?

We cannot allow this president to politicize and privatize the USPS. Stop the Trump administration’s self-interested destruction of this beloved and essential American institution — before it’s too late.

MARIE NORMAN

Squirrel Hill