Louis Dejoy, the former CEO of a logistics company, currently President of a North Carolina real estate consulting firm, was chosen as the new Postmaster General (PMG) starting June 15 by the Postal Board of Governors, the majority of whom are Trump appointees. He is the first Postmaster General to not come up through the ranks of the Postal Service unlike previous PMGs of the last two decades. Coincidentally Dejoy is a top Republican fundraiser and donor, a stalwart Trump ally punctuated by Trump’s own quote: Dejoy is ” a friend of mine who has been with us from the beginning. ” Dejoy is presently finance chairman of the National Republican Convention to be held in Charlotte. Since 2016 to the present Dejoy has donated more than $2,000,000 dollars to the Trump campaign and Republican causes.
Frankly, this appointment is a political one, a reward to Dejoy for his past and present financial support to Trump and the Republican Party. This is cronyism at its ugliest. In the past Dejoy has railed against the postal agency’s operation. I fear Dejoy will be a proxy for Trump who favors, along with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin( who came from Wall St ), privatizing the Postal Service. This Dejoy-Trump unholy alliance could very well be a huge step forward on the path leading to such privatization.
I believe the appointment of a partisan, political donor with no credentials is reckless and irresponsible. The Postal Service should and must remain an apolitical, independent public enterprise; a postal entity whose public ownership guarantees its mission of universal mail delivery at an affordable and uniform cost as enumerated in our US Constitution. The agency needs real leadership; someone, without any hidden agenda, who has extensive knowledge of the agency’s operation and a deep understanding of the fiscal issues facing it.
Subjected to the pandemic-induced economic fallout coupled with the red ink caused by the unnecessary fiscally onerous 2006 Congressionally-legislated healthcare mandate, the Postal Service finds itself in dire fiscal straits. It desperately needs federal emergency and ongoing financial assistance to carry out its public mission; that mission is delivering mail daily to 160 million addresses reaching all regions, be it urban, suburban, rural and connecting homes and businesses in every corner of our country, all at a uniform and affordable rate. Adequate funding will allow postal workers to continue moving the mail for e-commerce, making sure seniors get their prescriptions and checking on the safety of the elderly. An ample federal cash infusion, rescinding the 2006 healthcare mandate together with beneficial postal reforms are measures that would go a long way in putting the Postal Service on sound financial footing.
I believe the Postal Service deserves the funding and so would our Founding Fathers.
John Lown
108 Oak Street
Maybrook, NY
108 Oak Street
Maybrook, NY
