President Trump threatened to veto the $2 trillion stimulus package if it included any money to bail out the financially foundering U.S. Postal Service, according to a senior administration official. “Instead, Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) added a last-minute $10 billion Treasury Department loan to the Cares Act to keep the agency on firmer ground through the spring of 2020, according to a Democratic committee aide,” Jacob Bogage reports for The Washington Post. Without the $10 billion loan, lawmakers were told the Postal Service would be inoperable by the end of September.
The loss of the Postal Service could have dire consequences in rural America, which disproportionately relies on the service for mail, medications, food, and other staples.
“On Friday, Trump advocated, as he long has, for the Postal Service to raise the prices it charges online services like Amazon to deliver goods, often to hard-to-reach rural areas,” Allison Pecorin reports for ABC News.
The Postal Service, already in the red before the pandemic, is in dire need of help right now because of the sudden drop in mail volume and sales for postal products and services. In an open letter on April 10, Postmaster General Megan Brennan said the pandemic will increase the USPS’s net operating loss by an estimated $22 billion over the next 18 months. She asked lawmakers for $50 billion last week: “$25 billion to offset lost revenue from declining mail volume due to the coronavirus and $25 billion for ‘modernization’ — plus another $25 billion Treasury loan and a mechanism to pay down $14 billion in existing public debt,” Bogage reports.
“Much of Trump’s invective on the Postal Service is aimed at Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post,” Bogage reports. Last week at a news conference, Trump criticized Amazon and other shippers for not paying the Postal Service enough to deliver packages. That mainly happens in rural areas, where private shippers find it less profitable to operate. In urban and suburban areas, private shippers like Amazon, FedEx, and UPS find it cheaper to hire their own delivery drivers.
It’s unclear whether Postal Service aid will be included in the next stimulus package. “The agency’s troubles have renewed conservative conversations about structural changes that would force the Postal Service to act more like a corporation, with steps such as eliminating the prepaid pension requirement and easing its universal service obligation to deliver to every address in the United States, including ones so remote,” Bogage reports.
(The Rural Blog is published by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky.)
The Rural Blog is a publication of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues based at the University of Kentucky.
