During the summer floods, the Montpelier office (above) of the US Postal Service (USPS) was flooded out. On Friday, VDC published a letter by Sens. Sanders and Welch and Rep. Balint demanding restoration of full postal services. The author (inset) has some first-hand knowledge about the ramifications of the flooding, because some of the functionality of that office was hosted at the Processing and Distribution Plant where he works in Essex: “Mind you, I am not a decision-maker, just an entry-level mail handler assistant. The flooding affected all of us. As far as I can tell, everyone worked diligently to make sure mail delivery went as smoothly as humanly possible. It was a small burp overall, IMHO. Those workers and customers in Montpelier may have a different perspective.”

by Seth Adam Manley 

The letter from Sanders, Welch, and Balint sent to the national Postmaster General demonstrates a total  disconnect from reality. They seem to think they can shake their fists and make people work for free. 

The  fact is, the economy is bad. We have a high cost of repairing the old space and a high cost of rental space for  a new location. Sure, the local officers could have just agreed to “whatever” price to pay to expedite things.  There is an old saying: haste makes waste. In business, it’s always better to wait a minute and make sure you  are getting the best price. Especially when you don’t have anything in the budget to spare. Even then, these costs are not easily budgeted for, especially considering the USPS has lost money every year for the past 17  years. 

The three Congressmen who signed that letter should know, but they do not know. They continue to pretend  to be “in charge” of a multi-billion dollar business. They are the ones responsible for policies that shaped the  economy in Vermont over the past 30 years. The poor business conditions in Vermont reflect the poor policies they put in place.  

Two of them should be very well acquainted with the operational budget of the USPS. Both Sanders and Welch voted to steal what little profits the USPS had and transfer them to the US Treasury to fund their own  little unrelated projects. For details about that, see the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act,  which like so many of the socialist agendas, did exactly the opposite of what the title suggests. Both of them also voted to bail out the USPS in 2020 to the tune of 10’s of Billions of dollars.  

To be like a real business, the USPS has an operating budget based on income that it should stay within. If it  does not stay within that budget, there are only two options: raise prices or take the money from somewhere  else.  

Raising prices would be a prudent option. They have competition, you say, and can’t raise prices? In that  case, they should stop taking lowball contracts with other delivery companies like DHS and Amazon to deliver their packages for them. Think about it: the USPS delivers packages cheaper than those other companies only because it can steal money from taxpayers who aren’t benefiting from those services. 

Since this is a Federal business, and doesn’t need to worry about real-world reality, it most likely will take the  money from taxpayers as it has done every year for the past 17 years. What happens to most real businesses  if they have deficits for 17 years in a row? 

Nope. These congressmen need to open their eyes and take a look at the reality their socialist policy is  creating. Yes, the workers need to be taken care of and deserve decent working conditions. If they can’t  work under current conditions, then fine! At least they have job security. 

Let’s ask the people whom the USPS serves: should the USPS sharpen its pencil, or spend more of tax dollars? Personally, I don’t think a little delayed mail will break anyone’s bank, but more outrageous spending and  taxation sure might.