Attacks on USPS from within unwarranted

Kudos to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., for calling on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to immediately address the needless debilitation of the U.S. Postal Service in West Virginia.

Under mounting pressure — including pending lawsuits from 20 states — DeJoy now says he will “postpone” changes to mail operations until after the November election. Manchin and others should stay tuned to make sure that’s the case.

Manchin sent a letter to DeJoy, detailing a visit to the U.S. Postal Service Processing and Distribution Center in South Charleston, crucial to mail delivery throughout West Virginia and several other states. Manchin describes seeing three sorting machines out of service with another scheduled to go offline. This follows national reports of sorting machines being shut down in postal centers throughout the country.

Manchin views recent decisions to scale back postal operations as aligning with President Donald Trump’s multiple public statements attempting to undermine faith in the USPS — made as a presidential election that will rely heavily on mail-in ballots in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic nears.

The USPS has suffered as private delivery services have flourished. Funded only through postage sales, not taxpayer funds, the Postal Service has operated at a loss of billions of dollars per year and has scaled back on deliveries and post office locations over time. The federal government hasn’t always been a helpful ally.

In 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which set the unprecedented standard of having the USPS fully fund its pension plan for the next 75 years within a decade. It was a demand many knew the USPS could not meet. The mandate, which the U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal in February, has been viewed by many as a deliberate attempt to mortally wound the postal service and let private interests take over.

The number of mailboxes in the country was reduced by 12,000 over the final five years of President Barack Obama’s administration. There’s no doubt that, in some areas of the country, demand is down. It’s also known that the USPS is considering reducing hours at or closing about two-dozen facilities in West Virginia, after a miscommunication about a study caused several Mountain State post offices to mistakenly tell customers they were shutting down.

This further hobbling of the Postal Service under DeJoy, whatever the motivation, hurts the thousands of people the agency puts to work with good-paying wages and benefits. The last thing West Virginia needs is for another job provider, and a good one at that, to fold.

Of equal importance is that many places in West Virginia still rely heavily on the USPS not just for mail, but for delivery of ordered products, including vital medications. In many rural areas, the Postal Service takes over final delivery for companies like UPS, FedEx and DHL, either because it is not cost-effective for those private services to complete such orders or their delivery fleets simply can’t get to those locations.

The USPS should not be anyone’s political plaything. Too much depends on its continued operation. DeJoy should work toward getting these centers back at full capacity now, and any plans to reduce service, even after the election, need to be closely scrutinized by the public and Congress.

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