Public infrastructure is not only physical objects, but systems as well. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy seems bent on degrading the mail system with which, ostensibly, he is charged with stewardship:
Seventy percent of first-class mail sent to Nevada will take longer to arrive, according to The Post’s analysis, as will 60 percent of the deliveries to Florida, 58 percent to Washington state, 57 percent to Montana, and 55 percent to Arizona and Oregon. In all, at least a third of such letters and parcels addressed to 27 stateswill arrive more slowly under the new standards.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy contends the plan will cut costs, revitalize the agency’s network and create more consistency in transportation schedules. Though the Postal Service has significantly outpaced its own financial expectations so far this year, it faces a projected $160 billion deficit over the next decade. It estimates that the transportation changes will save as much as $10 billion over that span.
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But consumer advocates and the mailing industry’s largely friendly but competitive stakeholders have panned the new initiative, saying it will harm customers, drive away mail users and further erode the 246-year-old agency’s credibility, which has taken a hit after a year of pronounced delivery declines.
Attorneys general from 21 states, led by Pennsylvania and New York, on Monday wrote to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to oppose the changes, arguing they discriminate against mail consumers based on geography and that the Postal Service was poised to fall back into poor operational decisions that slowed mail service in the run-up to the 2020 elections.
If you are holding your breath for the Pentagon to cut costs, revitialize its worldwide network of installations, create more consistency, and outpace financial expectations, you are a goner. Republicans only demand that from public services they wish either to kill or to privatize. DeJoy seems bent on doing both to the USPS. Republicans have for decades treated public assets the way thieves cut up stolen cars for parts.
It is why friends are both hopeful and suspicious about Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal announced Friday. Public-private partnerships are included in the mix. I’ve been clear what I think of those.
“Why do only the bad ideas from the 1990s hang around?” asks Alex Lawson of Social Security Works.