This has invited Congress and state legislatures opportunities to propose mail-in ballots to be delivered to all registered voters.
Perhaps that is why the current administration is reviving a George W. Bush-era assault on the United States Postal Service (USPS) by rejecting funds it needs to help deal with and recover from the damage the coronavirus is inflicting on it.
In 2006, the Republican-led Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which required the postal service to calculate all its anticipated pension costs for 75 years and set aside five billion dollars per year to cover future employees.
That's five billion dollars each year for employees who haven't even been born yet.
Writing for The Week, Jeff Spross explained:
"Consider your average 30-year mortgage. What if you had to set aside a few hundred thousand dollars right now, enough to pay the whole thing, even if you were still going to make payments over 30 years? No one would ever take out a mortgage. That's the whole point: the costs only come in over time, and the income you use to pay them comes in over time as well. It works exactly the same for retiree pensions and benefit funds. Which is why, as economist Dean Baker pointed out to Congress, pretty much no one else does what the PAEA demanded of the Postal Service."
Fast forward to today, when the USPS is faced with not only this handicap but also the unprecedented economic strains the virus is imposing.
The Trump administration--which has no problem bailing out the airline, tourism, and hospitality industries--has declared in order to make more profit a death sentence on the industry for which Benjamin Franklin served as the first Postmaster General.
How long can the postal service hang on?
About a month and a half.
June.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) tweeted last week:
"I spoke with the Postmaster General again today. She could not have been more clear:
"The Postal Service will collapse without urgent intervention, and it will happen soon. We've pleaded with the White House to help. personally directed his staff not to do so."We probably wouldn't miss all the junk mail we receive.
But what about all the medications millions receive through the mail?
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