Dear Editor,

I am writing concerning the crisIs in the Postal Service.

This vital entity is under attack by the President and his fellow Republicans.

President Trump has pledged to “starve the Postal Service” of much needed funding while handing out relief money with ease to other businesses that are affected by the current pandemic. He has even gone so far as to call it “a joke.”

Our local congressman, Bill Johnson, seems to think that the latest controversy was drummed up by Speaker Pelosi and her liberal left allies. He claims that Democrats conjured up yet another fake scandal in an attempt to hurt President Trump.

This is a typical crony response.

Wake up, Congressman!

The crisis in the postal service resulted from many factors. The foremost cause was the passing of the Republican-sponsored Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act in 2006.

This law required it to pre-fund employee pension and retirement health care costs for the next 75 years within a 10-year time span. This was a demand not made to any other federal agency nor the private sector.

The President appears to be trying to break the Postal Service and its union for his own political purposes. A strong indication of this is the appointment of a crony Louis DeJoy.

Mr. DeJoy is a North Carolina businessman who was in charge of fundraising for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte. He recently testified before the House Oversight Committee to answer for his destructive changes to the U.S. Postal Service.

His testimony confirmed that he’s incompetent. He doesn’t know how much it costs to send a postcard or how many people had voted by mail in the last presidential election.

He said he’s not the one who ordered the operational changes to the Postal Service, but he also didn’t know who had. He refused to commit to reversing the changes the Trump administration made to the Postal Service.

The elimination of postal operations would cause the loss of over 469,934 career employees and 136,174 non-career employees. There are 97,000 military veterans employed who would be affected.

Those who are concerned about their medications and exposure to the coronavirus would also be greatly impacted.

All this just to suppress mail-in balloting and a scheme to privatize one of our constitutional mandated entities.

What a shame!

The House of Representatives recently passed the Delivering for America Act in a 257-150 vote. The legislation, a $25 billion, bipartisan bill, would prohibit the Postal Service from implementing or approving any changes to the operations or service levels that would impede service.

The President is threatening to veto this bill unless he gets his way on pandemic funding.

How childish!

The bill comes amid questions about the Postal Service and concerns about decisions that could affect the upcoming election. More Americans are expected to submit absentee ballots this fall because of the pandemic than ever before. This scares a lot of incumbents.

We need the Postal Service. It is a stand-alone federal agency that previously required no federal money to operate until a Republican Congress and President started using it as a political toy to disband.

The privatization of mail service would be a crushing blow to people depending on the Postal Service as a last stop mailing route. It would also be in violation of our Constitution.

Frank Papini

President, USW S.O.A.R. Chapter 23-9

St. Clairsville