Around the nation, and even in Concord NH, mailboxes have been taken off the streets by the post office. Multiple boxes were taken in Concord NH, one from the corner of Merrimack and School Street. As a ploy to save money, the Post Office has been removing the large blue boxes that they consider to be receiving a low volume of mail. Citizens rely on these boxes to send mail where home service pickup is not included. This is all part of a massive shakeup of the United States Postal Service initiated by Trump when he made massive changes in leadership about a week ago.
USPS spokesman Rod Spurgeon indicated that during the pandemic that people have been sending less mail, so the removal of boxes was started. The problem with this initiative is that the Post Office is on the cusp of receiving a massive amount of mail as millions of Americans get ready to vote by mail. The increased volume might overwhelm the remaining boxes. It also presents challenges where now people may have to travel further to find a new box or might not know where a new box is located.
Along with mailboxes, high volume sorting machines have been removed from Post Offices. These machines help the postal workers to sort mail quickly. With their removal, a slowdown in their ability to deliver mail will occur. These delays could have major impacts with mail voting as if a vote is sent on time, but is delayed by the Post Office, the vote might not be counted.
After much social media backlash the USPS was forced to stop the removal of boxes. Although they are not putting back the ones already removed, they have committed to stopping the removal of more.
“We are not going to be removing any [more] boxes,” USPS spokesman Rod Spurgeon told NBC News. “After the election, we’re going to take a look at operations and see what we need and don’t need.”
Postal service is a like a utility. How much do you enjoy having running water and sewage? How about regularly scheduled trash pickup and disposal?” This government service doesn’t cost taxpayers money, it actually brings in money. This is one of the cheapest government services that’s currently being run. Like any other business, the postal service has struggled during covid. Either fund them or let them get market financing.
USPS had $71 billion of revenue in 2019, and a net loss of $8.8 billion. As far as a government service they are costing us $8.8 billion (before arguments about pension benefit expense acceleration). That’s pretty cheap. That’s about $25 per person in the US, to have a postal service. Or they could raise prices slightly and be free (and still cheaper and more available than the alternatives of UPS and FedEx).
Mr. Trump Stop tearing down our post offices.