The current attack on the USPS is about more than the 2020 US election. The threat to privatize this essential American institution comes FROM BOTH GOP & DEMOCRATS. Louis Dejoy’s actions at Trump’s behest only represent the latest chapter of a long-standing project 1/

In 2006, Congress passed “The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.” The Act “required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future” (no other US govt agency has this requirement) 2/

President Obama left 5 vacancies on the 9 member USPS Board of Governors. The remaining 4 were Bush appointees. Oversight of the Board by the Postal Regulatory Commission fell flat during Obama’s tenure: He failed to fill 2 vacancies, leaving 2 GOP Commissioners & 1 Democrat 3/

Obama did face strong opposition on appointments after 2010, but “since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid triggered the nuclear option, nominees only need 50 votes for confirmation, lessening the possibility for obstruction” 4/

How can privatization of a public good like the USPS be a bipartisan endeavor? To truly understand what’s going on, we need to talk about neoliberalism. Wide-spread misunderstanding of the term, especially in the United States, has helped to mask its nefarious effects 5/

Americans see “liberal” & immediately think of social programs & left-wing ideology. Step back from that first impression. NEOLIBERALISM describes the economic theory responsible for the erosion of working class existence 6/

Through social engineering, purveyors of neoliberalism used a sort of bait & switch. The generation that produced the student movement of the 1960’s got hooked with terms like “individual liberty” & “freedom of choice.” 7/

In true Orwellian fashion, neoliberal ‘liberty’ & ‘freedom’ had nothing to do with democratic ideals — the end goal of the neoliberals was ‘freedom’ FROM government regulation of the market 8/

The result: “Concentrating wealth in the hands of a global oligarchic elite—eight families now hold as much wealth as 50 percent of the world’s population—while demolishing government controls and regulations always creates massive income inequality and monopoly power, (cont) 9/

fuels political extremism and destroys democracy...But economic rationality was never the point. The point was the restoration of class power” 10/

The neoliberal method:
1. Defund & delegitimize a public agency
2. Privatize
3. Deregulate to let ‘the market’ control all 11/

Proponents of privatization always argue that government cannot deliver as efficiently as the private sector & that regulation impedes innovation. Taken at face value, it’s easy to see how people fall for this charade 12/

In truth, “Corporations exist for one reason: to make a profit for their stockholders. It would be unreasonable to expect them to balance social goals, and few would claim that corporate decision making represented a kind of democracy on which a whole society should be based” 13/

Back in 1976, President Ford approved switching the USPS from tax-payer funded to self-funded, but warned against privatization: “[b]usinesses would only enter those ‘markets where the Postal Service makes money’ (cont) 14/

and universal service would be at risk without revenues from these profitable markets to subsidize mail delivery in rural areas” 15/

Further reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/17/louis-dejoy-usps-postmaster-general-election
https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/
https://newrepublic.com/article/116558/postal-service-banking-relies-obama-use-his-appointment-powers
https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-reid-nuclear-option-100199
https://corpwatch.org/article/what-neoliberalism
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/neoliberalisms-dark-path-to-fascism/
https://www.https-proxy.com/v1/tunnel/archives.evergreen.edu/webpages/curricular/2001-2002/privatiz/thesis.pdf
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-conservative-case-for-the-u-s-postal-service/ 16/end