By: Van Carver, Van Scoyoc Associates
Wednesday, June 3, 2020 a virtual forum was held by Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO). Witnesses included John McHugh (former Member of Congress), Chairman of The Package Coalition and Jim Sauber, Chief of Staff, National Association of Letter Carriers.
Chairman Bennie Thompson began the roundtable emphasizing the importance of USPS. He specifically pointed out that post offices are the lifeline and foundation of the community, especially rural communities – like his hometown. Throughout his opening statement he remarked how important USPS is during the COVID-19 pandemic. He went on to state how important USPS will be during the election season. He then turned to the financial disparity USPS is facing – specifically, that even when appropriated the $10 billion by the CARES Act it will still go broke. USPS will need more help. He went on to state the HEROES Act would provide $25 billion for USPS, which would provide much needed financial help and would allow Congress to get around to creating reforming measures for USPS.
Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver followed Chairman Thompson and stated that he believes “stamping out” USPS is shortsighted, that if USPS is privatized rural areas will be hit the hardest. These communities rely on post offices for critical needs and taking them away would do irreparable harm to these communities.
Former Rep. John McHugh, now Chairman of the Package Coalition, stated that USPS is essential to the country’s economic growth, as well as serving as the backbone of its infrastructure. Furthermore, he stated that it is essential that Congress find a way for any future emergency supplementals to provide adequate funding to bring USPS on sound financial footing.
Jim Sauber, Chief of Staff, National Association of Letter Carriers, remarked in his opening statement that the USPS is truly the only national distribution network and serves as the connecting point for every American across the United States – all 60 million delivery points. He went on to say that USPS desperately needs taxpayer support to survive this crisis, and that it may run out of reserves in the next couple of months.
Following the opening statements Chairman Thompson emphasized how important post offices are to the medical field. In his rural community, they did not have a pharmacy, and so the post office was essentially their drug store. He wanted to point out how important they were. He then went on to ask the question how is the USPS designed to help the country during national disasters.
Mr. McHugh responded that unforeseen disasters will continue to occur, and there needs to be a network that can touch corner of the U.S., in a short amount of time, and USPS is that mobilizing network.
Rep. Cleaver’s first question centered around his major concern on unemployment. If the closure of the USPS occurs, what would happen to all of the postal employees?
Mr. Sauber mentioned that right now there are plenty of excess workers in all facets of the American job economy, and there would not be many options for postal service workers. What is interesting to note, is he mentioned, USPS is one of the fastest growing new jobs during this pandemic, which runs opposite to the current labor market which is dwindling. USPS is hiring more workers to make sure the services they provide are uninterrupted during the pandemic.
Mr. McHugh added that with already the huge increase of unemployment numbers due to COVID-19, to imagine employees from USPS added to that would overload the system. He then went on to state if USPS were to be closed, the e-commerce market many stores utilize would dwindle even more. To rely on privatized carriers that do not have 60 million delivery points would cut their market and margins significantly.
Chairman Thompson was adamant that the vote-by-mail system can only thrive through USPS. He asked for comments from Mr. McHugh and Mr. Sauber.
Mr. McHugh, in his own capacity, stated he believes vote-by-mail would not lead to an explosion of vote fraud, and he believes no one would be better to handle vote-by-mail than USPS.
Mr. Sauber replied that USPS is essential to U.S. democracy, and elections are reliant on USPS even outside of any vote-by-mail systems. The National Association of Letter Carriers stands ready to carry out the task.
Chairman Thompson then asked what would happen to the respective members of each of the Witnesses’ organization.
Mr. McHugh remarked that without USPS, a number of members of the National Package Coalition would cease to exist. Furthermore, the hardest hit would be small businesses – their margins of profit would be next to none.
Mr. Sauber echoed the focus on small businesses, that many of them ran their businesses out of their home even before the pandemic, and the fact that they are especially reliant on USPS.
Rep. Cleaver in his last question focused on rural areas, and asked whether Amazon or the lowest bidder could economically do what USPS is doing.
Mr. Sauber said absolutely not – Amazon and the other big companies hire USPS to fulfill deliveries to addresses and rural areas that the private carriers do not want to deliver to.
In his closing statement Chairman Thompson asked Mr. Sauber to share a poll on what the public thinks about USPS. Results of the poll showed that there was universal favorability to USPS – republicans and democrats alike. Furthermore, there was again universal support, 3 to 1, to use taxpayer dollars to financially help USPS during the pandemic.
An archived stream of the round table can be found here.
Van Carver
Van Scoyoc Associates
800 Maine Ave SW, Suite 800
Washington, D.C. 20024
202-737-8945
