Time for U.S. to deliver for Postal Service
There will never be a good time to allow the United States Postal Service to run out of money with the intent of hastening its disappearance. But no time would be worse than during a historic pandemic that has disrupted life in the United States and isolated so many Americans.
Yet that is exactly what the Trump administration is threatening.
Because of COVID-19, mail volume has dropped by one-third from one year ago. Earlier this month, Postmaster General Megan Brennan told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that the economic consequences of the virus would cause USPS to lose $13 billion in fiscal year 2020 and run out of money before Sept. 30. She requested $75 billion in cash, grants and loans to keep the agency afloat.
According to the Washington Post, President Donald Trump not only blocked emergency funding for USPS but threatened to veto the recently passed $2.2 trillion stimulus package unless a $13 billion grant for USPS was removed. It was removed and replaced with a $10 billion loan. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has warned Trump will oppose future stimulus packages if relief for the Postal Service is included.
Privatization of the Postal Service has long been a tenet of some conservative ideology. But Trump’s hostility toward USPS appears shaded by his belief the agency should charge Amazon higher rates for shipping its products. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his newspaper, the Washington Post, are frequent targets of Trump’s ire.
That USPS delivers packages for private companies such as Amazon and FedEx illustrates how essential it is to our nation and how it consistently fulfills its universal service obligation to deliver mail everywhere, including places Amazon and FedEx won’t.
The Postal Service connects rural and elderly Americans who aren’t online. It’s essential to the dissemination of information — such as the millions of postcards with coronavirus guidelines sent by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — and it’s essential to our democracy in facilitating mail-in and absentee balloting.
To date, more than 500 postal carriers have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 19 have died. These are front-line workers bravely keeping this country going.
A 2019 Gallup poll found USPS is the most popular federal agency, with 74 percent saying it’s excellent or good. Through rain, sleet, snow and, now, pandemic, the postal service delivers and must be given the funding to continue delivering to its appointed rounds.
COVID-19.
In spite of this, Clubhouse staff members are working hard to stay in touch with our folks, for whom isolation is especially hard. We are also putting together care packages for some who can’t leave their apartments and/or are out of money. Several of our members instantly lost their jobs when local restaurants were forced to close their doors.
Recently, I stopped at H-E-B on my way to work to pick up a few items for our household. I got there at 8 a.m., right as the store was opening. I saw a long line of folks waiting to get in, with a police officer and security guard standing by the entrance.
I was there for milk and eggs, and as I passed the paper towel and toilet paper aisle, I noticed a mass of shoppers filling their baskets. I have to admit, even though we didn’t need toilet paper, I thought about joining the crowd and grabbing some extra. Just in case, you know?
Standing in the checkout line, I watched as workers removed paper towels and toilet paper from customer baskets, reminding them there was a limit on how much they could buy — apparently, folks hadn’t read the notices placed in the aisle. One woman, who had filled two baskets with toilet paper, became pretty upset.
At work a couple of days before this, I received a call from one of our older Clubhouse members who couldn’t leave his apartment even if he wanted to. In addition to mental illness, he has severe physical disabilities. Dirt-poor, he relies on an undependable provider to bring him food and clean his apartment. He called because he hadn’t seen the provider for several days and was out of food. I told him I would gather some provisions and be over that afternoon.
Wanting to avoid the grocery store, I went to the Clubhouse, grabbed some food and toilet paper, and headed to his apartment complex. I gave him the food, but when I tried to give him a couple of rolls of toilet paper, he said, “I still have a roll. Maybe give it to somebody else who needs it.”His response floored me. During a time when we often can’t find toilet paper on store shelves due to hoarding, this man turned it down because he still had one roll.
As I was leaving the complex, I ran into another Clubhouse member in the parking lot. I asked him if he needed toilet paper, and he gratefully said yes as he was almost out. I handed him two rolls, but he gave me one back, saying, “Thanks, but one’s enough. My dad’s bringing me food and toilet paper tomorrow.”
In my experience working with homeless and marginalized folks, it seems that often those who have the least need the least. And paradoxically, those who have the least are often the most generous.
I’m not naive. I know this is not always true. But I’ve seen it happen enough to know there is something to it.
I heard a missionary once tell of something that happened to him in Mexico. He was ministering to the poorest of the poor, including children living on the street. He had developed a close relationship with one little boy, and when he found out it was the little boy’s birthday he decided to buy him an ice cream cone.
He handed it to him. The little boy’s eyes got big and he started yelling to his friends in Spanish, “We have ice cream! We have ice cream!” They all gathered around, taking turns licking the ice cream cone until it was gone.